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THE GETTY CENTER LIBRARY 


- 
e 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


# > 


INFLUENCE OF LIGHT ON COLOURS 


BRIGHT COLOURS UNAFFECTED, BY LIGHT, GIVING ALL 
THE TINTS OF THE RAINBOW 


a 


ee ee 
cadmium reds cadmium yellows strontian 
yellow 


pale cobalt ultramarine 
green cerulean blue Ty eabalt visite violets 
bead! green | blue light — dark 


Formerly only a single bright colour of the rainbow, lapis lazuli was absolutely 
permanent. At the present day all are so, except the madder omitted in this table. 


red red ochre SO 2 By 
ochre with white vermilion and white madder glazes 
pure mercuric vermilion 


AFTER 
AFTER 


BEFORE 
AFTER BEFORE 


AFTER 


BEFORE 
BEFORE 


in SP 


Veronese green . chrome 
"madden endian hanes and silver white and light cadmium yellow 
Veronese green Veronese green 
and strontian yellow 


Red ochre, a dull but permanent colour, is redder after exposure to light 
than the brilliant mercuric vermilion. 


£ ; Jali / : : z 


“BSS nes Sind su otis RN ae 
phil =, 2 a 
es is BS sat oe . 


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10 
Bib 
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BRILLIANT OIL-COLOURS WHICH ARE 
UNAFFECTED BY LIGHT. 


WESE colours reproduce the vivid tints of the 
prismatic colours. Madder lake is the only one 
unrepresented, because of its perishable nature. 


ge 


DETERIORATION OF COLOURS SUSCEPTIBLE 
TO (LIGHT. . 


oLcours tested by the painter, Etienne Dinet, 


shown before and after the experiment. Compare 
the result obtained with vermilion, a vivid but 
impermanent colour, with that obtained with red ochve, 
a dull but permanent one. After the experiment, the 
dull tint was the more brilliant of the two. 


gz 


The Technique of Painting 
BY CHARLES MOREAU -VAUTHIER 
WITH A PREFACE BY ETIENNE DINET 
ILLUSTRATED in COLOUR anpb BLACK AnD WHITE 


LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM'’S SONS 
MCMXAIII 


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PREFACE 


My Dear FRIeEnNpD, 


I must confess to a certain embarrassment in 
writing a preface for your book on Painting. | 

In it you quote a considerable number of my 
personal observations, with an indulgence that 
may seem excessive. Hence, when I recommend 
your book to artists and amateurs, I am at the 
same time recommending my own opinions, which 
seems a little absurd. 

Nevertheless, as an artist cannot legitimately 
pride himself on his perspicacity when such obser- 
vations are forced upon him by his practice, and as 
those of several of my confréres are combined with 
my own, I disregard this little feeling of discomfort, 
and I do not hesitate to congratulate you sincerely 
on having undertaken such a work, and on having 
carried it out so well. ; 

Like everyone else, you have been struck by this 
fact: at retrospective exhibitions of modern art, 
many pictures which on their first appearance were 
greatly admired for their brilliance and freshness, 
seem so darkened and tarnished as to be hardly 
recognisable. 

Comparing this rapid deterioration with the 
admirable preservation of canvases executed by the 
masters of bygone centuries, you felt, as you have 
told me, impelled to undertake the present study. 

It was peculiarly fitting that I should encourage 

Vv 


PREFACE 


you in your task, for from the outset of my career 
I had suffered from the ignorance in which our 
professors had left us of those technical questions 
which the young painters of the past were compelled 
to study almost exclusively during their years of 
apprenticeship, and later on, my comrades, knowing 
that I was studying these questions, often came to 
confide their technical anxieties to me, and ask for 
means of assuaging them. 

Your book, then, will render immense services 
to artists and amateurs. But after having read 
it, they must forswear certain widely received 
traditions. | 

It is generally agreed that the bad preservation 
of modern works is due to the bad quality of 
modern paints. ‘‘ Look what admirable colours 
the Primitives had! What were their marvellous 
secrets ? Whowill give these backtous?” Such 
are the exclamations we constantly hear. 

Well, artists must be willing to make their mea 
culpa. Asa fact, if they will choose in accordance 
with the indications you give, they have at their 
disposal colours a thousand times more brilliant 
and more enduring than those used by the old 
masters. Defective methods, due to the neglect of 
the technical study of colours from the day when 
the artist found all the products he wanted ready 
for use in a shop, are responsible for all the evil. 

Here is a striking example of this fact :-— 

Among the complaints I have been accustomed 
to hear against the poor quality of modern colours, 
one of the most frequent is that certain colours are 
so bad as to turn black within twenty-four hours 
after use ; unhappy artists told me that a sky ora 

v1 


PREFACE 

EE 
nude they had painted with the utmost care was 
found the next day covered with hideous dark 
patches; they blamed their colourman, whose paints 
they promptly threw into the dustbin; then they 
bought new colours from another shop, and began 
their work again. Their labour was in vain, the 
hateful spots reappeared as quickly as before; they 
tried the colours of four or five dealers with the 
same wretched result; finally, in despair, they 
came to ask me if there zs in these days a single 
colourman more or less honest, who sells colours 
more or less durable. 

Now I say confidently, that there are no colours 
on the market so bad, that, either pure or mixed 
with others, they begin to deteriorate in the ordinary 
light of a studio in less than three weeks or a 
month; and even then the mixture they have under- 
gone must have been a fatal one, such, for instance, 
as that of Veronese green with lemon cadmium, 
and the light in the studio abnormally strong. 

How, then, are we to explain this rapid darkening 
of the colour? I was obliged to tell them the truth. 
It was due entirely to the methods they had adopted, 
and to prove the truth of my affirmation, I made 
the following experiment in their presence :— 

I took some very bright tempera colours (that is 
to say colours containing enough agglutinant to 
prevent them from sinking), which looked exactly 
like oil colours. I chose two colours which are 
supposed to be incorruptible, and incapable of action 
one upon the other: zinc white and ivory black. 

I mixed them together and spread a very even 
layer of the gray thus obtained upon a sheet of 
water-colour paper. 

vil 


PREFACE 
————eeSSFSSSSSSSSSSFFMseFs 

After a few minutes, when the water had evapor- 
ated and the coat of colour was perfectly dry, I 
handed them the palette, and told them to make up 
exactly the same tint of gray with this same black 
and white, and to put several touches of it on the 
gray I had laid. 

They did so, and their trained eyes enabled them 
to apply these touches so that it was impossible to 
distinguish them from the ground; but ina few 
minutes these touches began to darken terribly, 
and by the time they were perfectly dry they had 
become almost black. 

Here, then, were two colours, reputed absolutely 
durable, darkening not in two days, but in two 
minutes. 

What was the cause of the phenomenon? 
Simply the change of appearance of a coat of colour 
when it solidifies ; as the water has evaporated, the 
light is no longer refracted in the same manner, 
and this may be proved very easily, by letting a 
few drops of water fall on these spots. They at 
once regain their original brightness, blackening 
again as they dry. 

The same phenomenon takes place with oil 
colours, but less rapidly, because they dry more 
slowly; they shrink as they solidify and leave voids, 
and as they no longer refract the rays of light in 
the same manner, they cause a similar darkening 
of the colour. 

When such a rapid deterioration takes place the 
artist has only himself to blame; he must seek a 
remedy for the evil I have demonstrated; he must 
re-touch only with glazes, the darkening of which 
is counteracted by their transparence, or with an 

Vill 


PREFACE 


impasto much lighter than the under-painting, so 
that, even after the inevitable darkening, it will 
still remain lighter than the paint to which it has 
been applied. 

Your book will be very helpful to artists, not 
only for the future, but also for the present of their 
works. 

For the future it will give them confidence with 
regard to the colours they use, by enabling them 
to choose these wisely, to avoid those which are 
always bad, to test the quality of those which, 
well prepared, ought to be permanent, and to form 
an opinion as to the honesty of their colourmen. 

For the present, it will suggest remedies for the 
little material embarrassments they encounter daily 
in practice. 

Finally, your very interesting description of the 
different processes employed to imitate nature may 
incite them to research on their own account, and 
lead to discoveries of new techniques which will 
rejuvenate the art of painting. 

For all these reasons, I do not doubt that your 
book will obtain among them and among the 
amateurs who admire their works the success it 
deserves, the success I wish it with all my heart. 


Errmenne Diner. 


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7 

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Vat 


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PLATE 


II. 


TH. 


IV. 


Pals OE elo ALES 


PRE-HISTORIC AND ANTIQUE ART . . 


1. Painting with coloured earths : Bison incised on the 
Rock. (Cavern of the Fond de Gaume, Dor- 
dogne); 2. Fresco: The Aldobrandini Wedding 
(fragment). (Vatican Museum, Rome). 


GRACO-EGYPTIAN PAINTING 


1. Distemper painting. Coloured powders mixed with 
water and fixed with gum: Portrait ofa Woman. 
(The Louvre); 2. Encaustic painting. Coloured 
powders mixed with white wax: Portratt of a 
Woman. (The Louvre). 


CHIAROSCURO AND OPAQUE PAINTING 


1. Transparence of shadows due to chiaroscuro. Frag- 
ment of the S7. John, by Leonardo da Vinci. (The 
Louvre) ; 2. Exact values without transparence : 
Entombment, by Ribera. (The Louvre). 


Two DIFFERENT HANDLINGS, I5TH AND 16TH 
CENTURIES : : 


1. Fragment of an oil-painting. Handling smooth and 
equal: Condottiere, by Antonello da Messina. 
(The Louvre); 2. Handling in which the high 
lights are loaded, and the shadows thinly painted : 
Fragment of .S7. John, by Rubens. (The Louvre). 


GLAZES WITH OR WITHOUT CHIAROSCURO . 


1. Broad handling, impasto covered with glazes with- 
out chiaroscuro: Portrait of a Woman, by Titian. 
(The Louvre) ; 2. Impasto covered with glazes, 
with chiaroscuro, which emphasises the model- 
ling : Hendrickje Stoffels, by Rembrandt. (The 
Louvre). 


X111 


16 


22 


26 


PLATE 


Vi. 


Vil. 


VIII. 


IX. 


Xl. 


XII. 


LIST OF PLATES 


FACING 


TWO HANDLINGS CONTRASTED. 


I. Precision of drawing and modelling: Descent from 
the Cross, by Roger van der Weyden. (The 
Louvre); 2. Expression concentrated in the eyes 
and mouth: The Pilerims of Emmaus, by Rem- 
brandt. (The Louvre). 


PERFECTION OF SKILL IN 18TH CENTURY PAINTING 

1. Supple lights, delicate shadows ; 2. Supreme dex- 
terity of handling: The Bathers, by Fragonard. 
(The Louvre). 


PREDOMINANCE AND ELIMINATION OF LOCAL TONE 

1. Local tone modelled by values. Importance of the 
shadows, restriction of the lights : A/me. Jarre, by 
Prud’hon. (The Louvre); 2..Absence of local 
tone, no shadows. The modelling obtained by 
juxtaposed tones: Woman Reading, by Renoir. 
(The Luxembourg). 


IMPRESSIONISM AND NEO-IMPRESSIONISM : : 
1. Separate touches of pure colour, applied in confor- 
mity with the configuration of the surface, to get 
the modelling: Rocks of Belie-Jsle, by Monet. 
(The Luxembourg) ; 2. Regular touches, scientifi- 
cally juxtaposed. Modelling and form sacrificed 
to light: Venice, by Signac. (The Luxembourg). 


COLOUR-DIVISION : : : ; : 

1. Touches of pure colour, applied in hatchings that 
follow the modelling of the forms: Under the 
Olive-trees, by Henri Martin. (The Sorbonne); 
2. Rounded touches, subdued tints: Portrazt, by 
E. Laurent. (The Luxembourg). 


WORKED-UP IMPASTO : : : ° 
1. Use of the palette-knife: Zhe Pyrenees, by Diaz. 
(The Louvre); 2. Various processes used and left 
very apparent by Monticelli. (Chateau Collection). 


PASTEL ‘ ; , ‘ ‘ 5 : ‘ 

1. Tight handling: Za Tour, by Himself. (St. 
Quentin, Museum); 2. Free handling: La Jour, 
by Himself. (Dijon, Museum). 


X1V 


PAGE 


28 


38 


46 


60 


62 


64 


86° 


LIST OF PLATES 


PLATE 


will. 


XIV. 


XV. 


XVI. 


XVII. 


XVIII. 


XIX. 


XX. 


XXI. 


FACING 


PERIOD OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE, 15TH 
CENTURY ; 

. Fragment of a Fresco; 2. The cartes group: 

Giovanna Tornabuont,by Botticelli. (The Louvre). 


PAINTING EXECUTED WITH EGG 


An Old Man with a Child, by Ghirlandajo. (The 
Louvre). 


LOADED IMPASTO 


_Relief obtained by loaded ere T he Flayed Ox, 
by Rembrandt. 


“ ENVELOPPEE” HANDLING 

1. Fragment. Fat impasto, modelled in er aanee 
with the forms; 2. Opaque shadows, Saint 
Sébastien, by Ribot. (The Luxembourg). 


1. CRACKS. 2. PENTIMENTO « 4 

1. Cracks due to excess of oil and Sear atiee varnish- 
ing: The Woman with the Dagger, by Falguiére. 
(The Luxembourg); 2. Underpainting insuffi- 
ciently erased: Zhe Apotheosis of Homer, by 
Ingres. (The Louvre). 


DETERIORATION OF COLOURS 


Cracks due to bitumen: Cherudini, by es ‘(The 
Louvre). 

RESTORATIONS AND CRACKS d 

1. Bloom caused by excessive damp: JAfarignan, by 
Fragonard’s son; 2. Restoration by Durandeau, 
restorer of the Versailles Museum; 3. Cracks 
caused by thin painting, over a smooth priming : 
Portrait of Mme. Riviere, by Ingres. (The 
Louvre). 

CRACKS AND REPAINTS . : 

1. Pentimento apparent. Cracks due to premature 
varnishing ; 2. Wymph, by Henner. (The Luxem- 
bourg). 

DETERIORATION OF COLOURS . 

1. Evaporation of rosy tints due to the use of ee La 
Gtoconda, by Leonardo da Vinci. (Formerly in 
the Louvre) ; 2. The rosy tints produced by native 
earths have lasted. Cracks due to a priming pre- 
pared with size. The same picture. 


xV 


PAGE 


98 


102 


106 


IIO 


I22 


128 


160 


LIST OF PLATES 


_™. SSS 


AXITI. 


XXIV. 


FACING 
PAGE 
EXTRAVAGANT LOADING OF IMPASTO . - 184 


Preservation difficult, removal of varnish impossible: 


The Old Servant, by R. P. Bonington. (The 
Louvre). 


DETERIORATION AND RESTORATION gana eisucs |. 

1. Lakes destroyed by whites, but intact in the 
shadows : Holy Family of Francis dg ae 
Raphael. (The Louvre) ; 2. Restorer’s re-touches, 
which now appear as spots on the skin: Cruc- 
fixton, by A. Solario. (The Louvre). 


DETERIORATION OF A FRESCO f 4 . 220 


Deterioration due to alternations of damp and dry- 
ness. The colour blisters, bursts, and scales off: 
Portratt of Pintoricchio, at Spello. 


PAINTING 


TECHNIQUE 


*¢ The sun is God.”—Zurner, on his death-bed. 


In Pre-historic Times. 

~ Certain caves of the pre-historic period contain 
the first vestiges of the art of painting. Scholars 
assure us that the savages of to-day are carrying 
on the processes of primitive man when they stain 
their bodies and their idols with coloured earths, 
metallic salts, and vegetable juices. 

Mons. Christol’s study, L’Art dans lAfrique 
australe,* shows cave paintings executed by Bush- 
men in four tones: reddish brown, black, white 
and yellow. Soot or charred bones must have 
furnished the black; the other tints were produced 
by coloured earths mixed with various substances 
and with the juices of plants, and applied with 
brushes made of feathers. 

‘‘ There is no difference,” says Mons. E. Pottier, 
‘‘ between the inventions of Bushmen or Hottentots 
and those of the first Greeks.” In proof of this 
assertion Mons. Christol compares the paintings of 
the Bushmen with the paintings on Greek vases in 
the Louvre. The insignificance of the head strikes 
us in the African paintings, in the primitive Greek 

* Published by Berger-Levrault. 
P. I B 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


paintings, and even in the pre-historic works dis- 
covered in the caves of Southern France. As these 
primitive races went naked, their artists gave more 
attention to the body than to the head, and their 
existence as hunters inclined them to take a greater 
interest in animals than in men. 

Colours ground with a pestle upon a stone, when 
reduced to powder, were made into a paste with 
marrow, and these Primitives are also supposed to 
have mixed urine with their powder to bind and 
fix it.* The shoulder-blades of animals smeared 
with ochre seem to have been the first palettes, 
and large shells were used for the same purpose. 
This art was developed in the course of long periods. 
Some of the silhouettes represent animals: bisons, 
reindeer, horses, and wild boars. At first they 
were merely incised; gradually they began to be 
coloured with uniform black tints; red then made 
its appearance, and polychromy in red, black, brown 
and yellow was finally developed. A red and black 
bison painted on the wall of the cave of Altamira, 
in Spain, is a masterpiece of truth, precision and 
style. 


In Egypt. 


The Egyptians might boast of having used 

colours six thousand years before the Greeks. 

Egyptian painting was applied to statues and 
buildings. The sculptor was also the painter, 
colouring the figures he produced. He practised a 
very precise technique, and made use of highly 
developed processes. His colours, seven in number 

* La Caverne @ Altamira, by L. Cartailhac and H. Breuil, Monaco, 1906, 

t Lbid, 

2 


1, Painting with coloured earths : BISON INCISED ON THE ROCK. 
Cavern of the Fond de Gaune (Dordogne.) 


2. Fresco: The Aldobrandini WEpp1nG (fragment). (Vatican Museum, Rome.) 


1 


COLOURS OF THE EGYPTIANS 


—red, blue, yellow, green, brown, black and white— 
were subdivided into tints sufficiently varied to give 
him in all some fifteen colours, mostly mineral in 
origin. 

The very solid blue was produced by glass 
coloured with oxide of copper and pulverised. It 
was also extracted from lapis lazuli. Red was got 
from ochre, natural or burnt, and from cinnabar. 
The yellows were derived from ochre or sulphate of 
arsenic. The green, avery fragile tint, was obtained 
from copper, black from charred bones or charcoal. 
The white, which is remarkable for its brilliance 
and its excellent preservation, was gypsum. 


Painting. 

Gums were used to mix the colours, and honey 
is thought to have entered into the composition of 
some of them. 

Colours in the forms of cakes, pellets and powder, 
were kept in small bags and in hollowed reeds. 
These ancient bags served the same purpose as the 
bladders used by the old masters, while the hollowed 
reeds answer to the metal tubes of our contemporary 
painters. 

These colours were pounded with a muller on a 
hollow stone, and moistened with a mixture of gum 
tragacanth and water. Reeds were used to apply 
them. ‘These reeds were soaked in water, which 
caused them to divide into very supple fibres. The 
prepared colours were sometimes kept in pots, but 
palettes of various shapes were also used.* 

The material was thus complete. Painting 


* In the Salle du Scribe, in the Louvre, Egyptian palettes and paint-brushes 
are exhibited. 


3 B2 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


commanded nearly all the necessary means of expres- 
sion. It had coloured powders and an agglutinous 
medium to fix them upon wood, and on the mortars 
and stuccoes with which stone surfaces were over- 
laid. It was vivid, fresh, and solid. 

But Egyptian painting remained conventional in 
its treatment of persons and objects. Its design, 
thoughthis was held in check by difficulties it failed to 
overcome, such as foreshortening and perspective, 
was more correct than its colour. It represented 
forms with startling reality. But as soon as colour 
came into play the painter adopted formulas. Men 
were tinted brown, women yellow, and in general 
all figures and objects were represented with the 
same local colours. Receipts which prescribed the 
tones to be used for all objects were handed down 
from workshop to workshop. 

The artist applied these tones uniformly, regard- 
less of light and shade. He painted in flat tints 
coloured silhouettes, all of equal intensity, innocent 
of modelling and gradations. Planes, distances, 
perspective and chiaroscuro were non-existent for 
him, as for the public to whom he appealed. 


Under the tenth dynasty, painters began to over- 


lay this fresh and vivid painting with varnish, to 
preserve it from the dust and the action of the air. 
But in course of time the varnish cracked and 
darkened, and its use was abandoned. 


In Greece. 

We have every reason to suppose that Greek 
painting was equal to Greek sculpture. Would the 
Greeks, who had admired Phidias and Praxiteles, 
have lavished equal admiration on Apelles and 


4 


THE GREEK PAINTERS 


Zeuxis without just cause? According to a tradi- 
tion, birds came to peck the grapes in one picture ; 
a painter tried to draw back a curtain in another; 
a horse neighed at a horse painted by Apelles. 

Although legends and names have come down to 
us, the works of the Greek painters have dis- 
appeared, and it is not easy to determine the 
processes of these masters. The texts bearing upon 
them are rare, incomplete, and occasionally obscure, 
and nothing has survived of the treatises on 
painting written by Apelles and Euphranor. 

The Greeks seem to have worked chiefly in 
tempera, like the Egyptians. They probably 
moistened their powders with an agglutinous 
solution of gum and water. The gum may have 
been replaced on occasions by size or egg, or by 
milk.* They applied their colours on a surface 
prepared with the agglutinous substance. 

An anecdote recorded by Pliny supports this 
supposition. Protogenes, painting a dog, wanted 
to put foam on his mouth, and could not produce 
the effect. Irritated at his want of success, he 
threw a sponge soaked in colour at the dog’s 
mouth, which achieved the desired illusion. 

Greek painting seems to have had its origin in 
Sicyon or Corinth. The outline of the body was 
drawn with the brush. Cleanthes of Corinth 
painted in this manner, and Philocles, called ‘the 
Egyptian,” doubtless because he had been to Egypt 
to study the native masters, just as our artists go 
to Rome. But Aridikes of Corinth and Telephanes 
of Sicyon filled in their silhouettes with black, and 


* The French call all these mixtures a¢trempe. In English the egg-mixture 
is known as ¢empera, the size-mixture as distemper. See pp. 90—92. [7 r. | 


be) 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
TS ee 
Ecphantus of Corinth relieved them with touches of 
red, produced by pounded brick. 

Eumares of Athens was an innovator. He 
distinguished the sexes, but not in the Egyptian 
manner. In the land of Andromache “of the 
white arms,” he could not have tinted women 
yellow ; he made them white. His formula was 
immediately adopted by the theatre, and Thespis, 
the tragedian, smeared white lead on the masks of 
the women to distinguish them from those of the 
men, which were stained with wine-lees. 

Cimon of Cleonz, his successor, determined the 
technique of Polygnotus and Micon. Cimon broke 
down the primitive stiffness, varied his attitudes, 
inclined his heads, gave animation to his looks, and 
suppleness to his nudes and draperies. Mons. Paul 
Girard believes that Micon even substituted poly- 
chrome for black figures. His painting must have 
been sober and conventional, but it was already 
concerned with the expression of shades. Cimon 
may be considered the first painter of Greece, 
chronologically. - 

The colours used by these early Greek masters 
were four in number: white, furnished by Melos 
earth ; a yellow ochre, which was the Attic sil; a 
red derived from Pontic quartz (sinopis), and a 
lamp-black, atramentum. 


Painting. : 

Fine draughtsmanship and these four colours 
produced moving compositions like the Ilioupersis, 
executed by Polygnotus at Delphi, in the temple 
of Apollo.* 


* As regards composition, we must imagine ‘the pediment of a temple 
without landscape which served as the connecting medium; each scene had 


GR7CO-EGYPTIAN PAINTING 


1, Distemper painting. Coloured powders mixed with water and fixed 
with gum : PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN. (The Lourre.) 


2. Encaustic painting. Coloured powders mixed with white wax : 
PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN. (The Louvre.) 


RSRURRRDMELREINE 
OO ial 


RRS esta EMRE OR jy 


¢ 


/ 
fish 


THE GREEK PAINTERS 


Blue was lacking on the palette of Polygnotus, 
and yet this colour was in use around him for 
painting buildings and statues. No combination 
known in Greece had yet produced a green, says 
Mons. Girard; but a mixture of black and yellow 
may have afforded a grayish tone approaching 
to green. Mons. Girard writes further :— 


“The brilliant polychromy then in vogue in sculpture and 
architecture could not have failed to re-act upon painting, had 
painting been open to such influences ; but it was tending more 
and more to sobriety, concentrating all its efforts on beauty 
of line, intoxicated, so to speak, by the nobility of its design. 
In the sixth century it had been conventional through impo- 
tence ; in the fifth this conventionality was deliberate.* 


Design was supreme; colour remained an 
accessory; and this manner, flat, pale, proud, 
nervous and passionate, was, it would seem, the 
characteristic style of antique painting at its finest. 

It was maintained in the works of Micon and of 
Pausanias, the brother of Phidias, contemporaries 
of Polygnotus. But very soon Apollodorus of 
Athens perfected the technique. As he was the 
first to attempt a gradation of tones, he was nick- 
named the sciagraph, the skilful painter of shade. 

Zeuxis and Parrhasius were more realistic, more 
popular, but perhaps less great than their pre- 
cursors. Zeuxis himself said, modestly, of the 
child holding the bunch of grapes which deceived 
the birds :— 

“ If I had painted the child as well as I painted 
the grapes, the birds would have been afraid of him.” 


its background ; here trees, there the walls of Troy, just sufficient to indicate 
the scene of the episode . . . long parallel registers, encroaching one on 
the other, and showing none of the regularity of vases in the ancient style.”"— 
Paul Girard, La Peinture antique (Quantin). 
* Ibid. 
7 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
—— eee 


Zeuxis concentrated his powers on modelling, 
and produced monochrome paintings, essays in 
grisaulle and camaieu. 

Girard sees in this a return to monochrome 
methods. But should it not rather be considered 
an evidence of a new taste for modelling ? 

Parrhasius went still further. He drowned his 
contours in shadow, and emphasised the high- 
toned passages. Relief was at last introduced in 
painting. 

The technique was now complete, and Apelles 
made his appearance. He was master of perfect 
design and marvellous modelling. Contemporary 
authors assure us that in his Alexander hurling 
Thunderbolts the fingers seem to stand out in 
relief, and the thunderbolts to be falling upon the 
spectators.* 

He commanded a richer palette, no doubt; used 
new tints, such as green and blue, and his black 
was made of calcined ivory.t Besides, there had 
been improvements in the composition and admix- 
ture of colours, and variations in the materials for 
painting upon had been adopted. 

It is possible that the Greeks were acquainted 
with fresco; that is to say, water-colour painting 
on the fresh plaster of a wall. It is supposed that 
Polygnotus’ large compositions must have been 
executed in fresco. Be this as it may, certain 

* One day, says Pliny, Alexander, paying a visit to Apelles’ studio, 
began to talk somewhat imprudently about painting. The artist advised 
him to refrain, telling him that the little boys who were grinding colours in a 
corner were laughing at what he had said. Aélian attributes the incident 
to Zeuxis and Megabyzus, while Plutarch tells it of Apelles and Megabyzus. 

t “ Apelles,” said Pliny, “ produced black from burnt ivory, and he called 
it ivory black.” Polygnotus and Micon made their black with the lees of 


wine, dried and boiled. Cydias of Cythnus was the first who burnt yellow 
to obtain vermilion. 
8 


ENCAUSTIC 


extant texts prove that the Greeks painted upon 
panels fixed upon the walls beforehand, or placed 
in position after they had been decorated. These 
panels became the so-called easel-pictures ; that is 
to say, pictures small enough to have been painted 
on an easel. A Pompeian caricature shows a 
painter at work before an easel. 

The pictures of Zeuxis, Parrhasius and Apelles, 
which were executed upon wooden panels, were 
easily carried off into Italy by the Romans when 
they conquered Greece; the more ancient mural 
paintings alone remained. 

According to some, Polygnotus was the inventor 
of encaustic, and according to others, Aristides. 

Encaustic painting enjoyed great favour in Egypt, 
and in Greece from the Alexandrine period, and 
survived the antique world in Italy during the first 
centuries of the Christian era. This process, which 
has shown exceptional durability, remains some- 
what of a mystery. Vitruvius, Pliny and Philo- 
stratus mention it, without giving any precise 
account of its technique. 

In encaustic painting, white wax mixed with 
coloured powder was made up into cakes which 
were kept in boxes. When about to apply them, 
artists melted them on heated metal palettes. The 
coloured wax was laid on with a brush, but as it set 
very quickly when it grew cold, it was re-touched with 
irons made moderately hot, which fused the tints. 
It was commonly said of an encaustic painting : 
‘‘ So-and-so burned it,” as we say of an engraving, 
‘¢ So-and-so engraved it.” 

Plutarch remarks that the sight of certain women 
leaves a pale and feeble image on the heart, like 


9 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
—_——— 
tempera, and that of other women a burning and 
durable impression, like encaustic. 

Numerous portraits painted in encaustic have 
been found in Egypt. They are generally to be 
distinguished from tempera by the traces of the 
tools on the paste; but sometimes it is difficult 
to decide whether a work is in tempera or encaustic. 


At Rome. 


In Italy, painting retained the character of its 
Greek origin. In his Natural History Pliny divides 
colours into the austere and the florid. Florid colours 
had to be provided for the artist on account of their 
high price. They were: minium, armenium, chry- 
socolla, purpurissum and indicum purpurissum. 
The austere colours were more numerous: sinopis, 
rubric, orpiment, melin, atramentum, burnt ceruse, 
sandarac, sandix, sericum, etc. 

Purpurissum, the first of the florid colours, was 
obtained with the chalk used to burnish silver, 
thrown into the vats of the dyers of purple. The 
chalk absorbed the dye. Women used it to paint 
their faces. 

The taste of amateurs had been perfected. 
Cicero perceived that painters see differently to 
other people. He wrote: “How many things, 
invisible to us, are seen by painters in shadows and 
projections!” Pliny speaks of persons who have a 
taste for sketches. He tells us: “The last pieces 
of artists, those they have left unfinished, are more 
admired than their perfect productions . . . for one 
can see in them the sketch as it was left and the 
very thoughts of the artist.” Dilettantism was 
developing just as the decadence was beginning. 

£) 


BEGINNINGS OF MODERN PAINTING 


In the most famous known work of Roman 
times, the Aldobrandint Marriage, in the Vatican, 
the process, the composition, the whole is Greek. 
Greek influences are no less evident in the Pom- 
peian paintings, which, in spite of their great 
historical value, are merely the works of decorators. 
But in the presence of this charming decline, the 
dictum of Pliny the Elder seems very severe: ‘As 
men can no longer paint the soul, they are also 
neglecting to paint the body. I have said enough 
of a dying art.” 


In Modern Times. 

In the seventh century Saint Gregory the Pope 
wrote: “ Let the churches be filled with paintings, 
that they who do not know their letters may be 
able to read on the walls what they cannot read 
in manuscripts.” 

In the midst of an absolute decadence of the 
arts, painters were held fast by formularies within 
the limits prescribed by ecclesiastical authority. 
All individual liberty, all essays in proportion, 
form, reality, and beauty were forbidden. 

Centuries passed before the first attempts at 
"independence manifested themselves in Italy. 
Tempera painting remained in favour; manu- 
scripts, shrines, triptychs and the walls of churches 
were alike covered withit. It shared the domain 
of painting with fresco.* 

The Libro dell’ Arte or Trattato della Pittura of 


* Mosaic does not come within the scope of this study. The manuscript of 
the monk Eraclius, in the tenth century, De Colorbus et Artibus Komanorum, 
the treatise of the monk Rogierus, known as Theophilus, in the twelfth 
century, Déversarum Artium Schedula, certain others, and finally, the treatise 
of an Italian painter of the fifteenth century, Cennino Cennini, describe these 
two processes. 


If 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
SUE LE mn 


Cennino Cennini, a document of inestimable value, 
describes the methods of painting at a period when 
instruction in art was often shrouded in mystery, 
although Italian painting manifested a splendid 
vitality. Would that every fine period of art had 
left us a kindred work on its technique ! 

This treatise teaches the art of painting in fresco 
and tempera, scrupulously, minutely, and sometimes 
artlessly in its details and counsels, and shows the 
slowness and thoroughness of a complete education. 

In Chapter civ., the worthy Cennini, who was 
aged eighty, and was in prison for debt when he 
composed his treatise, wrote these lines :— 


“Know that this is the term of time necessary to learn. 
First, a year to study elementary drawing upon tablets. Six 
years thou must spend with thy master in his workshop, to 
become acquainted with all the branches of our art, beginning 
with grinding colours, boiling pastes, kneading plaster, then 
becoming skilful in the preparation of panels, enriching 
them, polishing them, putting on gold, and graining them 
well. After this, thou wilt need six years more to study 
colour, and gilding with mordants, to treat draperies with 
gold and to practise working upon walls, and all this time 
thou must draw incessantly, never laying aside thy drawing 
either on festivals or working days. Thus a natural aptitude 
becomes, by perpetual practice, excellent skill. Otherwise, 
whatever path thou mayest follow, hope not to attain per- 
fection. There are many who say that they have learnt their 
art without apprenticeship to the masters. Believe it not. I 
will give thee this book as an example; if thou wert to 
study it day and night without working under some master, 
thou wouldst never arrive at anything, or not at anything © 
which could make a fair show if placed by the works of the 
great painters.” 


Thus, in those days it took thirteen years to 
become a painter. And this term was considered 
a moderate one. Cennino declares that Taddeo 

IZ 


CENNINI’S TREATISE 


Gaddi remained for twenty-four years in Giotto’s 
workshop. As the education of the artist began 
when he was about ten years old, and sometimes 
before, the young painter might hope to be a master 
of his art when he was twenty-five. 

Cennino develops his system gradually from 
drawing to grinding and making colours; he 
studies the various processes known: fresco, tempera 
and even oil, which was already in use, and says 
in passing, with reference to the proportions of the 
human body: “I will say nothing of woman, for 
no single measure of her body is perfect.” 

Painting on these methods, clear, limpid and 
brilliant, aimed at splendour, precision, and lucidity. 
It knew nothing of landscape, chiaroscuro, or 
perspective. 

Cennino does not advise students to go and look 
at mountains: “If thou wouldst paint mountains 
in a good style and to look natural, take some large 
stones full of cracks and copy them.” Landscape 
inspires this recommendation: “‘ When thou hast 
covered the trunks of the trees with black, draw the 
branches, put the leaves above and the fruits after- 
wards; on the grass put a few flowers and some 
small birds.” 

His instructions concerning perspective are very 
brief: “The cornices thou makest on the top of 
buildings must diminish from above to below as 
they descend; the cornice in the middle of a build- 
ing must be equal and similar throughout ; that of 
the base or pedestal must rise, etc.” * 

In spite of this lack of experience, this painting 


* Traité de la Peinture de Cennino Cennint, translated by Victor Mottez, 
Paris, 1858. English translation by C. J. Herringham, 1899. 


13 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
gr rr ence 
was noble, expressive, and sumptuous. Artists 
surrounded their figures with precious objects and 
ornaments; they clothed them in magnificent 
costumes, and set them against backgrounds of 
gold. Crivelli incrusted the cross of Christ with 
precious stones, Angelico, Gentile da Fabriano, 
Cosimo Rosselli and Pintoricchio lavished gold on 
their pictures and frescoes, and Alberti remarks 
that “‘some persons make an immoderate use of 
gold in their pictures, believing that this metal 
bestows a certain nobility on the subject.” 

The Flemings even went so far as to paint upon 
gold panels, but not with any idea of this sort. 
They aimed at giving greater solidity, splendour, 
and transparence to their painting. In Italy, 
although fresco, of course, was always painted 
on the wall, tempera or egg-painting was executed 
on panels of lime or willow wood. Cennini describes 
how on these panels canvas was pasted, which 
was afterwards overlaid with a plaster ground, 
Vasari attributes the invention of canvas stretched 
over panel to Margaritone of Arezzo, a painter of the 
thirteenth century; but the process had been known 
long before this, for it is described by Theophilus 
and by Eraclius; the Byzantines practised it, and 
Egyptian sarcophagi have been found, painted ona 
plaster ground overlying a canvas applied to the 
wood. 

The colours used differ but little from the antique 
pigments : ochres, yellow and brown earths, orpine, 
cinnabar, malachite, terre verte, verdigris, whiting, 
and white lead. 

Cennini speaks with much solemnity of ultra- 
marine, which was very expensive, and a frequent 


14 


CENNINI’S TREATISE 


subject of dispute between artists and patrons; its 
use was regulated by contract. 

He says not a word about palettes; in fresco as 
in tempera, painters seem to have used only little 
jars, in which the colours were already prepared. 
When he gives instructions for painting faces, 
draperies, and trees, he mentions each of the 
mixtures to be used, recommending that they 
should be prepared in three and sometimes even 
in four separate jars, the first containing the high 
tone, the last the dark, the others the intermediate 
tone or tones. Over a very careful drawing, the 
artist began by painting all the portions in shade; 
he then put in the half tones and finally the high 
lights. He thus distributed the same tonality 
throughout his work, and went on to the half tones 
only when he had finished all the shadows. The 
sketch was unknown. But as the artist had often 
to go over his work again and retouch it, fresco 
was re-touched dry, with tempera, that is to say, 
with colour mixed with egg. 

Unfortunately, Cennini deals more curtly with 
the question of varnishes, although he very rightly 
advises the painter to wait as long as possible 
before varnishing his picture. He does not give the 
composition of the varnish then in use, of which 
indeed he may have been ignorant. 

At this period the painter was almost perfect as 
a technician. 

Cennino Cennini devotes several chapters to the 
application of ornaments in relief to walls and 
panels. This taste for actual relief led to a new 
science, that of perspective. | 

This science, created by Brunellesco, was received 


15 - 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 

—— 
with general enthusiasm. Painters, and even sculp- 
tors, took it up. Ghirlandajo, Masaccio, Paolo 
Uccello, Piero della Francesca and Mantegna 
studied it with delight. Mantegna created the art 
of foreshortening figures. Paolo Uccello could not 
sleep at night for thinking of it, and exclaimed to 
his wife, surprised to see him wide awake: “ How 
beautiful is this perspective ! ” 

At the same time the taste for camaieu and 
grisaille* initiated the feeling for chiaroscuro. 
After an over-exclusive pre-occupation with the 
intensity and clarity of their tone, painters, prac- 
tising in monochrome, learned to distinguish the 
relations of values, and to perceive that tone was 
a relative quality. We have already seen how 
in antiquity the vogue of grisaille coincided with 
the study of gradation and modelling, the intro- 
duction to chiaroscuro. 

Leonardo da Vinci gave a great impetus to the 
study of chiaroscuro. But his very curious Treatise 
on Painting, in which literature and ingenuity pre- 
dominate, lacks technical instructions. 

Mons. Péladan has rendered students and scholars 
a service in giving them a new French edition of 
this work.t He classifies and numbers the thoughts 
and sections in a more logical order than that of 
the old editions, and accompanies them by a 
brilliant and erudite commentary. Mons. Péladan 
is surprised at the indifference of painters to 
Leonardo’s Treatise, which he would like to see 


* Camaieu, the use of two tints; grisat2e, a monochrome of gray or 
brown. 

| Zraité de la Peinture, par Léonard de Vinci (translation and commentary 
by Péladan), Various English versions of it have appeared, one among 
Leonardo’s other literary works, edited by Dr. J. P. Richter, 1883, 


16 


CHIAROSCURO AND OPAQUE PAINTING 


1, Transparence of shadows due to chiaroscuro. Fragment of the 
ST. JOHN, by LEONARDO DA VINCI. (The Louvre.) 


v 


. 
*, 
t " Z 
M a 
me 
7 
* 
, 
* 
' A 


LEONARDO’S TREATISE 
ene 
“in the studio of the pupil and in that of the 
member of the Institute.’ Leonardo’s thoughts 
are more interesting to dilettanti than to prac- 
titioners, and to tell the truth, Mons. Péladan’s 
commentary will attract more attention than the 
master’s text. 

It was no longer a period such as that when 
Cennini was able to speak plainly and say how 
an artist was to paint. The old processes of fresco 
and tempera were in conflict with a new process, 
as yet imperfectly known and practised. A writer 
dared no longer say as before, do this and do that. 
Leonardo, the most learned but the most vacillating 
of men, abounds in suggestions, rather theoretical 
than practical. 

By a curious analogy he shows the same mixture 
of genius in vision and hesitation in technique 
which was to appear later in the painter Delacroix. 
Like the master of the Taking of Constantinople, the 
master of the Gioconda announces a new ideal, 
which he fails to translate brush in hand. 

We read in his Tveatise on Painting :— 


“ The first aim of the painter is to make it appear that a 
round body in relief is presented upon the flat surface of his 
picture ; and he who surpasses others in this respect, deserves to 
be esteemed more skilful than they in his calling. Now this 
perfection of art comes from the true and natural arrange- 
ment of light and shade, or what is called chiaroscuro ; thus, 
if a painter dispenses with shadows where they are necessary, 
he wrongs himself and renders his work despicable to con- 
noisseurs, to win the worthless applause of the vulgar and 
ignorant, who look only at the brilliance and gaiety of 
the colour in a picture, and care nothing for the relief,” 
(What should be the first object and the principal aim of a 
painter ?) 

Again he says: “ What is beautiful is not always right. Isay 

P, 17 C 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


this for certain painters who give so much to the beauty of 
colour that they put scarcely any shadows; and those they 
do put are always very slight, and hardly perceptible. These 
painters, contemning our art, attach little importance to the 
relief which strong shadows give to figures. In this they 
resemble those fine talkers who say nothing to the point.” 
(Of the degrees of tints in a painting.) 


Such words proclaimed a revolution in the 
manner of seeing and of painting. After the joy 
of colour, the poetry of values was making itself 
felt. A purely material advance was about to 
facilitate these novel essays. 


The Beginnings of Oil-Painting. 


In antique times attempts had been made to 
mix colours with oil. The tenth-century manu- 
script of Eraclius, quoted above, describes the 
fabrication of oil for grinding colours, and after 
giving directions for the preparation of panels, the 
writer adds: ‘‘ You might paint onithem in colours 
moistened with oil.” ae 
Theophilus again, in the twelfth century, describes 
the preparation of oil colours and of varnishes. 
“Take,” he says, “the colours you wish to use, 
grind them carefully with oil, without any water, 
and make mixtures of colours for figures and 
draperies, as you have done above with water, 
and you will be able to paint as you please and 
in their natural colours, animals, birds and foliage.” 
Theophilus admits that: ‘‘ Every time you have 
to apply a colour, you will not be able to lay ona 
second till the first is dry, and this, in pictures, is 
too slow and wearisome.” 
When we come to Cennino Cennini, that is, to 
18 


BEGINNINGS OF OIL-PAINTING 
ear inee 
the fourteenth century, the process has been per- 
fected. One detail is particularly striking. Cennino 
writes :— 

“T will teach you how to paint in oil on a wall 
or a panel, which painting is in use among the 
Germans.”’ He knows that colours mixed with oil 
are used beyond the Alps; but it is clear that he 
does not know how.* The method he expounds in 
several paragraphs of his treatise consists in laying 
glazes of transparent oil colour over a first model- 
ling in tempera. Thus, prescribing the manner of 
painting fish in the water, he says they should be 
painted and modelled in tempera, and adds: “ After 
a time, when all this is dry, pass over the whole 
a layer of verdigris mixed with oil.” This is not 
yet quite the complete process of oil-painting, but 
it was a transitional method very widely adopted at 
this time in Italy, for we find a great many pictures 
of the period either partly or entirely painted in 
this fashion.t This method preceded the so-called 
method of Van Eyck, which Antonello da Messina 
introduced into Italy. 

In general, painters used oil which they had 
boiled or had reduced by exposing it for a long 
time to the sun, and this viscous oil made it difficult 
to mix the colours and to dry them promptly.t 


* There is no doubt that the North of Europe was in advance of the South. 
See Origines de la Peinture a 'huile, by Dalbon, on contracts dated 1320 and 
1350, according to which, in Artois and Normandy, decorative paintings were 
ordered in fine oil colours. Yet Vasari dates the perfecting of the process and 
the zzventzon of the Van Eycks 1410! 

Tt See, for instance, in the Louvre, Ghirlandajo’s V7sz/ation, where the 
draperies are painted with egg and overlaid with flat oil glazes of the same 
tone ; all the modelling is done in the egg foundation. 

t Easel pictures were dried in the sun, and braziers were kept alight 
in front of wall paintings. As early as the thirteenth century there is a 
record in England, in the reign of Edward I., of coals provided to dry 
the paintings in the Queen’s chamber. In France, various documents speak 


1g Gea 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


Painting in oils was practised, but it remained 
an inconvenient process. The action of oils upon 
colours and that of colours upon oils varied greatly. 
The desideratum was a vehicle which should render 
all colours equally pliable and easy todry. During 
the splendid period of the precursors, from Cimabue 
to Perugino, oil was largely used in conjunction 
with tempera, and we often detect its presence 
over the hatchings of paint mixed with egg, in the 
transparency, the brilliance, and the vitreous polish 
of certain parts. 


Mérimée has said very justly: “The perfecting of processes 
had gone so far that the discovery of oil-painting had become 
more or less inevitable, and we might fairly feel surprised that 
it did not take place simultaneously in all countries where art 
was cultivated with any success,” * 


This glorious invention is wrapped in a mystery 
which threatens to remain impenetrable.  Oil- 
painting, brought to perfection by the brothers Van 
Eyck, suddenly produced works superb in their 
technique.f 

Artists were fired with an ambition to practise 
in their turn the marvellous process, the powers 
of which had been demonstrated by the splendid 
talent of the Van Eycks. They painted in oils 
because they were told that the Van Eycks painted 
in oils, and they believed they were painting, or at 


of logs tor fuel, and firewood, to dry mural paintings (Dalbon, Origines de 
la Peinture al huzle), 

* De la Peinture a Phutle, by Mérimée, 1830. 

+ Some writers (see Dalbon’s Ovigines de la Peinture & Thuile) assert 
that the principal improvement introduced by the Van Eycks was the produc- 
tion, by the addition of an essential oil, of a fluid, limpid varnish which 
dried quickly. This they mixed with their colours. Before their time, 
varnishes were sticky, difficult to apply and to dry, and full of resin. They 
were applied by friction with the hand over the picture, which was warmed 
to receive them. 


20 


METHOD OF THE VAN EYCKS 
a 
any rate, professed to be painting, like the Van 
Eycks. They did, indeed, imitate their processes, 
but they did not really know their secret. Every- 
thing tends to prove that the Flemish protagonists 
carried this with them to the grave. 

All that seems certain is that the Van Eycks used 
a preparation made with size, that they sketched 
in their subject in a single tint, transparent enough 
to let the white preparation show through. They 
then painted with a substance that was loaded with 
resin and moistened with oil. This very thin, 
supple and delicate material, brilliant as a precious 
stone, has the appearance of a brittle substance, a 
kind of varnish, when scales of it are submitted 
to examination. 

It is probable that this varnish, incorporated with 
the colour itself, preserved its limpidity together 
with its solidity. This is, no doubt, the great 
secret of the Van Eycks.* 

On the other hand, since 1450, the date of their 
death, it has been the general practice to paint in 
oil on oil primings in thick layers, finally coated 
with a varnish which does not form a homogeneous 
body with the stratum of colour. Such appears 
to be the error which has endured ever since 
painters claimed to be making use of the process 
invented by the Van Eycks. 

It may be noted, however, that in Flanders the 
process of the Van Eycks was imitated more 
successfully than elsewhere, although it was not 


* It is supposed that the improvement consisted in grinding and then soaking 
the colours in a somewhat liquid, oily varnish, with a basis of amber and 
mastic, and perhaps also of sandarac, to which was added a siccative, white 
vitriol or burnt bones, to the exclusion of lead, which would have injured 
the colours, + 


of 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
a 
perfectly known. The masters who came after 
them continued to produce pictures the substance 
of which remained supple and limpid, and capable of 
resisting the ravages of time. This continued until 
the time of Otto Venius, and even to that of his 
pupil, Rubens, who practised the same methods in 
his early works.* 

The purity and solidity of the materials used by 
painters were not wholly due to their minute and 
learned technique, and to their desire of leaving 
durable works; the result was also to a great 
extent brought about by the severe regulations 
framed by associations, guilds and bodies of 
master-painters. These academies imposed fines on 
artists whose materials were not good in quality. 

I take the following, among many such examples, 
from the charter of the master-painters of Ghent :+ 


ArT. Iv. Every painter received into the corporation shall 
work with good flesh colour upon stone, canvas, panels 
with shutters or other materials, and should he be found in 
fault, he shall pay a fine of 10 livres parisis. 

Art. vi. If, in any work to be executed in azure and best 
sinopis, he shall be found by the dean and the jury to have 
cheated with the materials, the delinquent shall incur a 
penalty of 10 livres parisis. 

ArT. x. Juries are expected to make domiciliary visits at 
all times and in all places, like good and careful inspectors, to 
see if any of the foregoing articles have been violated, or if 
any other infraction of the rules has been committed, and 
these visits are to be carried out without opposition from 
anyone, 

3 ; 

It is always the most orderly communities which 


are most careful to organise their police effectively, 


* See La Science de la Peinture, by Vibert. 


+ Others will be found in Dalbon’s Orzgines de la Peinture a Vhuile 
(Perrin, Paris), 


aa 


TWO DIFFERENT HANDLINGS, 15» AND 16% CENTURIES 


1, Fragment of an oil-painting. Handling smooth and equal : CONDOTTIERE, 
by ANTONELLO DA MESSINA, (The Louvre.) 


San i a 


so a Sm ee 


2. Handling in which the high lights are loaded, and the shadows thinly 
painted : Fragment of St. Joun, by RuBENS, (The Louvre.) 


1 


EARLY PAINTERS IN OIL 


although this is less necessary in their case than 
elsewhere, and it is always in the most perfect 
periods that the most stringent precautions are 
taken against possible lapses. As soon as de- 
cadence sets in, precautionary measures disappear, 
as if to precipitate the downfall. 

In Italy, oil-painting by processes based on the 
manner of the Van Eycks began to be practised by 
masters who were able to compound a limpid and 
durable material. Antonello da Messina defied the 
centuries in his Condottieve in the Louvre. He is 
said to have been the propagator of the process 
evolved at Bruges. The Venetians and the masters 
of Northern Italy adopted it enthusiastically. They 
appreciated its transparence, its warmth of tone, 
the facilities it afforded for touches that give 
modelling and relief. 

Lorenzo di Credi purified and distilled his oils 
with the utmost care. He mixed on his palette 
the dark and light tones which give gradation in 
modelling.* ‘ Indeed,” says Vasari, ‘“ he was over- 
particular, for sometimes his palette was loaded 
with twenty-five or thirty of these tones, for each of 
which he kept a special brush. He was in such 
terror of dust that he would not allow the least 
movement to be made in his studio.” 

Amico Aspertini discarded the palette, used pots 
as for fresco, and fastened them round his body with 
a belt. ‘‘ He was like the devil of San Macario,” 
says Vasari, “ with his rows of little boxes.” 


* The Primitives used several palettes, each devoted to different tones. On 
each palette there was a tone, in various gradations, and the artist applied 
this one tone throughout his picture before going on to another. This was the 
method of the illuminators, which the greater facilities of oil painting soon 
superseded. 

43 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
Se 

We see that the methods of the ancient schools, 
all their precautions with a view to solidity and 
perfection, were observed in Italy as in the North. 
The newly initiated—those who had received the 
secret from Antonello—did not quite forget their 
early education, and all its honest and con- 
scientious ideals.* 

Pollajuolo, Perugino, Verrocchio and Ghirlandajo 
painted in oils. The process was transmitted and 
became popular. It was useless for Michelangelo 
to treat it with scorn, as an art “fit only for 
women ”’ ; it invaded panels and walls ; canvas even 
began to be reserved for it. The Venetians appre- 
ciated this lighter and more manageable surface, 
which enabled them to execute works of large 
dimensions in their studios. 

But, as artists mastered the process more abso- 
lutely, they acquired greater assurance, and showed 
greater audacity in its use. The material, less 
stubborn than that of fresco, permitting more 
freedom in re-touching and correcting, tempted them 
to take liberties. Gradually, traditions were broken 
down, and a spirit of independence asserted itself. 
Each painter claimed the right to innovate and to 
assert himself. Schools multiplied and competed 
with each other. Artists projected vast composi- 
tions in oil as formerly in fresco. Soon Tintoretto, 
Veronese, and Giulio Romano covered gigantic | 
surfaces. Painting became more expeditious, but 
at the same time more summary and less sincere. 


* We know now that, in spite of the legend, Castagno, who shared the 
secret of oil-painting with Domenico Veneziano, did not murder his colleague 
that he might remain the sole repositary of the secret. It is even asserted 
that Domenico never knew Antonello, and that he painted in oils according 
to the method of Cennini, 

24 


VICES OF OIL-PAINTING 
ce 
It attained its most magnificent period, that in 
which, its means of expression almost perfect, 
it produced its superb masterpieces. But this 
moment was brief. In a few years a decadence in 
technique became apparent. 

The desire to fuse colours, to get a mellower 
effect and richer modelling, resulted in darkness 
and eyen in blackness. Leonardo da Vinci, the 
harbinger of chiaroscuro, was also its victim. 

In his desire to oppose shadows to light, and to 
obtain depth and mystery, he strove insistently to 
find darker depths for his grounds. The Gioconda, 
which Vasari describes as so fresh, vivid, and rich 
in colour, is now hardly more than a monochrome 
drawing. All his pictures have darkened.* 


Apogee and Decline of Oil-Painting. 


Disasters began to threaten at a very early 
period. Even during the Renaissance, painting 
was already manifestly compromised by varnishes, 
by the use of unstable colours, by unhappy ex- 
periments, by a technique less traditional, less 
safe than that of the past. 

At the supreme moment in the history of painting, 
when such masters as Titian, Leonardo, and 
Raphael were still living, the new methods were 
already condemned by contemporaries. Master- 
pieces were still to be born, but they all carried 
within them from their birth the germs of disease 
and death. 

Two methods of execution obtained. This was 
the first: On a monochrome under-painting, a 


* See on p. 161, the passage about Za Gioconda, the evaporation of the 
reds, etc, 
2) 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


kind of brush-drawing, shaded and modelled in 
brown tones over white, the colour-scheme was 
applied in an even impasto. This method of the 
Flemish masters was followed in Italy by the 
Florentines and the Romans, Perugino, Leonardo, 
and Raphael. They put solid layers over trans- 
parent ones, their object being not only to get 
transparent undertones, but to obtain a kind ot 
radiant base; sometimes they laid a sheet of gold- 
leaf over the gesso priming, and painted upon 
that.* The Venetians adopted the second manner: 
Titian finished his under-painting in a full impasto, 
and went over it afterwards with glazes. He did 
not, however, discard tempera, and size for his 
primings; but whereas the Flemings chose light 
preparations, Titian sometimes painted on a red 
ground; Correggio, it is said, even drew out his 
subject sometimes in gvisaille. We shall see that 
these two methods became very popular later on. 

The blocking out in a full impasto allowed of 
free modification and alteration, whereas the first 
method confined the subject definitely to the drawing 
made upon the preparation. Among the Venetians, 
the initial ardour and liberty were gradually subdued 
to admit of final subtleties and refinements, whereas 
among the Flemings prudence and method advanced 
step by step on a path already marked out. 

Glazes laid on transparently were not, as we have 
seen, a novelty; but the complete process of oil- 
painting made them easier. 

Nevertheless, charming as were the transparent 


* This was done in Rogier van der Weyden’s triptych at the hospital of 
Beaune. The Primitives, who hoped to make their works more durable by 
this device, exposed them, on the contrary, to the cupidity of vandals, who 
often destroyed them to get the gold from the priming. 


20 


Glave iT On WITHOUT .CHIAROSCURO 


1. Broad handling, impasto covered with glazes without chiaroscuro : 
PORTRAIT OF A WoMAN, by TITIAN. (The Louvre.) 


2. Impasto covered with glazes, with chiaroscuro, which emphasises the 
modelling : HENDRICKJE STOFFELS, by REMBRANDT. (The Louvre.) 


zi a Se ee ee ee ee el 


METHODS OF RUBENS 


effects produced by glazes of oil upon oil, painters 
soon recognised their fragility, and refrained from 
applying them to any but those portions of their 
work which would not suffer from the bistre tone 
they produced. Caravaggio, for instance, painted 
evenly throughout his picture in a full impasto, and 
only glazed the draperies and shadows. 

Meanwhile, Rubens, in Flanders, was. still 
sketching lightly on panels prepared with dis- 
temper; sometimes, but more rarely, he painted 
upon canvases with a light gray oil-priming, as in 
the Louvre series, the History of Marie de’ Medici. 

He followed in the wake of the Primitives ; his 
pencil drawing, which was gone over with the brush, 
was heightened with a brown wash. His free 
handling, thin in the shadows, loaded in the lights, 
was to become traditional and classical ; insisted on 
by all the manuals, transmitted from professor to 
professor, it has, nevertheless, not been perma- 
nently adopted. 

Rubens’ smooth, glazed manner has been studicd 
by Mérimée, who rightly concludes that ‘ Rubens 
did not paint with colours prepared like ours, but 
overlaid his panel with an unctuous matter, liquid 
enough not to check the movement of the brush, 
viscous enough to pick up the colour and make it 
adhere, and at the same time greasy enough to 
arrest the tendency of certain colours to spread 
beyond the place to which they are applied.’’* 


* Mérimée writes further: “ Rubens often painted his compositions directly 
upon very smooth panels. He put very little colour in the shadows, and even 
in the half-tones; it is only in the high lights that we see loaded touches.” — 
De la Peinture a?Phuile, by Mérimée. 

Cf. Fromentin, Les MJattres d Autrefois. This is what he says of Rubens: 
‘* His colours are very summary, and only appear complex because of the manner 
in which they are turned to account by the master, and the part he makes them 
play. None of Rubens’ tones are very remarkable intrinsically. . . . Ifyou take 


a7 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
(RR A A A ARES A EST SSS SES SSS SSS SS SSS iy 

In the works of Van Dyck we see impasto taking 
the place of his master’s “‘sauce”’ for the first 
sketch ; however, he remained throughout more 
prudent than Titian in the use of glazes, and also 
more prudent than Rubens in the use of vermilion, 
which he knew to be perishable.* We may see 
his sketches in gvisaille in all museums. 

Rembrandt in his early period essayed the 
smooth impasto of Van Eyck; at this time he 
formed a pupil, Gerard Dow, who was as scrupulous 
as any Primitive. But very soon Rembrandt allowed 
himself to be carried away. He piled up his 
impasto impulsively, without method or precautions, 
trusting to glazes to correct his errors and dis- 
tractions.f His genius had flights which defy 
all rules, and rises to the sublime by means well 
fitted to keep it chained to earth. His very 
individual technique remains his own, as Michel- 
angelo’s remains that of Michelangelo. 

The art of the other Dutch masters, if less 
inspired, is not less mysterious. Fromentin has 
well said: ‘ Their colour, their chiaroscuro, their 
modelling of relief, the play of ambient air in their 
works, and finally their handling, all are perfection 
one of his reds . . . it is made up of vermilion and ochre, very little broken, 
just as they were first mixed. If you examine his blacks, you will find that 
they were taken from the pot of ivory black, and that, mixed with white, they 
serve for all the imaginable combinations of his neutral and soft grays. His 
blues are accidents ; his yellow, one of the colours he feels and handles less 
satisfactorily than others as a tint, save in the case of the golds, which he 
excels in rendering in all their warm and subdued splendour, etc.” The 
whole of this page might well be quoted. 

* Van Dyck had studied chemistry and profited by his studies. The 
prudence in the use of vermilion, which he bequeathed to his pupils, 
became so excessive in some of them that they renounced the use of it 
altogether. Pieter Tyssens never used it. 

t In his 7welfth Discourse, Reynolds points out how happily the accidents 
arising from the use of the palette-knife were turned to account by Rembrandt, 


and remarks that such accidents become beauties of execution in the hand of 
@ master. 


28 


TWO HANDLINGS CONTRASTED 


1. Precision of drawing and modelling : 


DESCENT FROM THE CROSS, by 


ROGER VAN DER WEYDEN, (The Louvre.) 


2, Expression concentrated in the eyesand mouth. THE PILGRIMS OF EMMAUS, 
by REMBRANDT. (The Louvre.) 


Re 
: 
i tio eaten OED 


THE FRENCH PRIMITIVES 


and mystery.” Reynolds declared that painters 
should go to the Dutch School to instruct 
themselves in the art of painting, just as we take 
lessons in grammar to acquire a knowledge of 
languages. He was thinkingof the happy influence 
that the sight of these incomparable models might 
exercise ; but he omitted to say that no one knows 
how Terburg, Metzu, and Peter de Hooch painted, 
and as their pictures give no indication of their 
methods, it is impossible to guess. 


In France. 

In France, where the Primitive painters had 
adoped the Flemish technique, artistic activity, 
arrested for a while, recovered itself, and turned to 
the schools of Italy for its education. But here it 
found only the works of the great masters; their 
successors had little talent. 

As the masterpieces which governed all minds 
were the frescoes of Michelangelo and Raphael, 
fresco had continued in Italy to impose its methods, 
even on painters in oil. This method requires 
the use of preliminary cartoons, from which 
the painting is executed. It soon invaded all 
decoration on a large scale, and even easel 
pictures, which were more closely governed by 
reality. 

The Flemish, Italian and French Primitives had 
followed these methods, even in their oil pictures, 
because they had not yet freed themselves from the 
education derived from the practice of tempera and 
fresco. Oil-painting allowed of alterations and 
re-touches, of an execution less dependent on 
preparation and more directly inspired by Nature; 


29 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
ee 
the Venetians and the Dutch had proved this 
triumphantly. 

The French School followed the example of the 
new school in Italy.* All initiative disappeared. 
Absolute submission succeeded to the independence 
characteristic of the early Italian Renaissance. A 
classical tradition of the narrowest and most puerile 
kind dominated all alike. Nature was seen through 
the intermediary of antique sculpture and of 
Raphael. The result was that drawing became 
purely conventional, and painting, cold and lifeless, 
took on brown and reddish tones, due to the use 
of canvases with a red priming. 

Poussin,t although one of the last great 
individualities, had no ideal but the Antique and 
Raphael. After him, the evil increased. The 
authority of his style and of his ideas—more or 
less exactly transmitted—added to the obstacles 
between Nature and our painters.t Artists were 
remote indeed from that period when Leonardo 
declared that “a painter should never imitate 
another painter, for if he does, he must be called 
the grandson rather than the son of Nature.” 

Colour was looked upon as a secondary 
quality ;§ its only function was to make the picture 
agreeable. An author who faithfully echoes the 
ideas of the day, Junius, writes “that painters 
should try to get graceful colour, such as we see 


* Guido, the Carracci, and Domenichino. 

+ Poussin, a very conscientious painter, said of himself: «I neglected 
nothing.” Unhappily, he used canvases with a brown priming, and _ his 
painting has suffered in consequence. 

t Claude Lorrain, who, although he was conventional, was the first to 
paint the sun, only began to influence painters such as Turner in the nineteenth 
century. 

§ This highly intellectual period was more interested in drawing and style 
than in colour : exactitude of tint and animation of handling were to be the 


30 


DESIGN RANKED ABOVE COLOUR 


in young persons delicately brought up and tenderly 
nurtured.” This is a premonition of Mignard in 
all his insipidity. 

As there 1s always a great deal of discussion in 
periods of decadence, painters organised art con- 
ferences, and Philippe de Champagne, more severe 
than Junius on the subject of colour, declared at a 
sitting of the Academy that Poussin considered 
pre-occupation with colour “an obstacle and a 
danger in the way of young people anxious to 
reach the true goal of painting.’’* 

And Lebrun, ina lecture “on the merit of colour,” 
affirmed that drawing imitates all real things, 
whereas colour represents only what is accidental, 
a reproach which the Impressionists were one day 
to take to themselves and transform into eulogy. 

He goes even further. He argues that ‘the 
grinders of colours would rank with painters if 
drawing did not make a difference; for the former 
use colours as do painters, and know almost as well 
how to apply them.” 

“Almost as well”—is a mistake; they certainly 
know better, because they understand their com- 
position, and it must be admitted that the Primitives 
had a right appreciation of colours, which they 
took care to grind themselves. 

Teaching seems never to have been narrower, 
falser and more dogmatic. A well-known critic, 
Félibien, writes phrases which seem to have been 
pre-occupations of a more realistic art and a more sensuous period. The 
eighteenth century was to introduce them. Poussin wrote from Venice: ‘‘It 
is time for me to come away, I feel that I should become acolourist.” This 
phrase, which shows how little he thought of colour, also shows that, contrary to 
generally received opinion, he believed that a painter could become a colourist. 


* If this were so, Poussin can have had little idea of his own meaning when 
he said of painting: ‘Its object is to delight.” 


ab 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
aan eee 
dictated by a blind man.* He subordinates vision 
to reason, truth to nobility, and sets forth the 
hierarchy of styles which has held Sway down to 
our own times. 

This was the period when Teniers was despised 
because his drawing was not “noble,” when the 
brothers Lenain, although members of the Academy, 
were scorned, when Charles Lebrun laid down the 
principle that “ Nature must be corrected by art,” 
and in his treatise on the expression of the passions 
gave formulas for the rendering of every emotion.f 


The Masters of the Eighteenth Century. 


Meanwhile the portrait-painters, obliged by 
the necessities of their art to examine and repro- 
duce their models, were destined to become the 
saviours of the French School, the harbingers of 
the fascinating masters of the eighteenth century. 
Certain writers initiated the reaction against Lebrun’s 
theories. The movement began with Charles 
Perrault, who, in his Potme de la Peinture and his 
Paralléle des Anciens et des M odernes, attacks the Old 


Masters, and declares that painting “is more accom- | 


plished now than in the century of Raphael himself, 


* He praises Poussin for having expressed distance by grayer tones; in 
this he sees a sacrifice to reason. He holds that the more subdued tones are 
less agreeable, as if distances were not full of exquisite colour. He writes: 
‘Nothing is so easily deceived as the human eye. ... This is why the 
painter tries to make sight and reason agree.” 

t The following observations on the subject of szmple love are typical : 


“When it is not accompanied by any violent desire, joy or sadness... an 
agreeable warmth pervades the breast, and the digestion of food proceeds 
gently in the stomach, so that this passion is conducive to health... ..” A 


word in season to the dyspeptic! And we are told that Louis XIV. considered 
Lebrun ‘‘ after such admirable evidences of learning, above all others, and the 
greatest of men.” 

32 


THE RISE OF VIRTUOSITY 


as far as chiaroscuro, gradation of light, and com- 
position is concerned.” By acurious contradiction, 
this reaction against the theories of Lebrun gives 
Lebrun’s own painting as the model for imitation. 
Thus theorists continued to maintain that the 
painter should “be able to copy Nature without 
looking at it,” so that the reaction which found 
exponents in Largilliére, de Troy and Watteau 
—under the influence of Rubens, whom the 
world was beginning to admire—preserved the 
artificial tendencies which governed the School, 
in spite of everything. “To be able to copy 
Nature without looking at it” remained like an 
echo in all memories.* Painters were expected 
to be brilliant and ingenious; simplicity was a 
fault to be avoided. The impetuosity of work 
without a model induced a taste for accomplished 
handling, for agility with the brush. To give 
variety to an execution which the absence of Nature 
made monotonous, artists set to work to paint 
by strokes and facets; they sought to awaken 
interest by virtuosity} The smooth material 
of the seventeenth century was succeeded by a 
loaded and uneven impasto, glazed after the manner 
of the Venetians, where the visible traces of the 
process were emphasised. The Primitives had 
laid down the principle that the spectator should 


* Reynolds tells how, when he went to see Boucher, he found him working 
on a very large picture, for which he was using neither models nor sketches of 
any sort. When Reynolds expressed surprise, Boucher replied that in his 
youth, and when he was studying his art, he had considered the modei 
necessary, but that he had not now used it for a long time. 

7 ‘‘It is the touch which gives life and movement,” wrote Tocqué 
(Réflextons sur la Pecnture et particulierement sur le genre du portrait, MS. 
in the library of the Ecole des Beaux Arts). Compare the execution of one of 
the heads of young girls printed by Greuze (Louvre) with any of Mignard’s 
portraits. Greuze models even the cheeks of a young girl by facets. 


P. 33 D 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


not be able to see how the picture had been 
painted; these later artists emphasised the traces 
of their labours for all beholders. 

We shall see how this manner was transmitted 
and how, a hundred years later, it culminated in a 
kind of handling that revolutionised technique. 

The picturesque began to enter by degrees into 
the manner of painting, and to play a primordial 
part init. This pre-occupation with the march of 
the brush began with Rubens, Rembrandt, Frans 
Hals, Brauwer, and Teniers; but these pioneers 
yielded to an involuntary impulse. The great 
artists of the eighteenth century, on the other hand, 
gave themselves up to a delirium of handling, 
and this affectation of negligence became a method 
of attraction which was employed more and more 
every day, in spite of fitful reactions. The initiated 
looked closely at the picture and admired the 
handling; this gave them a special pleasure, 
independent of the subject treated. Painting 
became a kind of rhetoric. 

The intellectuality of the seventeenth century was 
succeeded by a sensuousness which was to give a 
new interest to colour and to the technical part 
of painting in general. 

Colour once more engaged the attention of 
artists and found favour with them. Oudry, in a 
lecture delivered at the Academy, Réflexions sur 
la maneére d’étudier les couleurs en comparant les 
objets les uns avec les autres, shows traces of this 
novel absorption, and of Largilliére’s influence in 
this revolution. Here is an extract from his 
discourse. It is worth quoting, and in spite of 
some shortcomings, is still good reading, as 


34 


LARGILLIERE ON MODELLING 


well as very remarkable for the date when it was 
written :— 

‘‘T remember,” says Oudry, “a circumstance 
that happened when I was with Largilliére. He 
said to me one morning that one ought to paint 
flowers occasionally. I went at once to fetch some. 
I thought I was showing great intelligence by 
bringing some ofeverycolour. When he saw them, 
he said: ‘It was to form you in colour that I 
proposed this study. But do you think that the 
selection you have made will further this object? 
Come,’ he added, ‘ get a bunch of flowers all of which 
are white.’ I obeyedatonce. When I had placed 
them before me, he came and stood by me; he set 
them against a light background and began by 
pointing out that, on the side of the shadow, they 
were very brown against this background, and that 
on the bright side they stood out against it in half- 
tones, for the most part rather light. Then he put 
against the white of these flowers, which was very 
white, the white of my palette, which, as he showed 
me, was whiter still. He made me recognise, at 
the same time, that in this bunch of white flowers, 
the high tones which required to be touched with 
pure white were not very numerous, compared with 
the passages in half-tones, and that in fact there 
were very few of them; he showed me that it was 
this which formed the relief of the bouquet, and 
that the apparent roundness of any object to which 
one wishes to give relief depends upon this same 
principle. That is to say, that one can only get 
these effects by broad half-tones, and never by 
spreading the first high tones. After this he made 
me sensible of the strong touches of brown in the 


35 D2 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


centre of the shadow, and the places where they 
were without any reflections. ‘Very few of our 
painters,’ he said, ‘have dared to render the effect 
you have here, although Nature shows it to them 
every moment. Remember that this is one of the 
great keys to the magic of chiaroscuro. Remember 
also that to accentuate their colour makes your 
object brilliant; and finally, you may take it as a 
general rule that all you can do by this artifice will 
be much better than trying to get the effect by the 
thickness of the colour, because, being applied 
on a plane surface, it cannot help your effect, 
and can only be harmful to it, except in very rare 
Cases: t 

In Réflextons sur la pratique dela Peinture, another 
lecture of Oudry’s, the MS. of which I have been 
able to consult at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, thanks 
to the courtesy of the learned librarian, Mons. 
Marcheix, there are certain indications which throw 
light upon the approved methods of painting at this 
period. 

Oudry condemns red-brown as a priming; 
painters were then beginning to recognise its 
dangers.* 

But he also condemns white primings ; he asserts 
that they come through, and destroy the shadows 
and half-tones. He reprobates the use of any 
pure colour, yellow, brown, etc., and recommends 
priming in half-tones. ‘A tone,” he says, “‘ always 
asserts itself.” 


* Nevertheless, its use persisted. Generally, a priming of red-brown mixed 
with umber was applied, or one of pure umber. At the end of the eighteenth 
century (from 1750 to 1780), litharge was added to accelerate drying, and 
“pictures were covered with little salient specks, the grains of ill-ground 


litharge. 
36 


EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY TECHNIQUE 


In another discourse he condemns the use of 
grisaille for blocking in the subject, both as mate- 
rial and as colour, again because of the white in 
it. He declares that gvisailles, owing to the 
copious intermixture of white in them, always 
remain separate from the painting above, and never 
bear it out ; white dries quickly, becomes very hard, 
and consequently does not become incorporated 
with pigments laid over it. Besides, as we have 
seen above, he declares that it always comes 
through. 

A good under-painting, he thinks, should not be 
a thin rubbing, but an impasto which will give a 
solid foundation. 

He says a good deal about oil, and recommends 
an abundant use of it. When painting over, he 
advises the painter to varnish the under-painting 
lightly first, but he does not say with what. 

He approves the preparation of tones before- 
hand on the palette with the palette-knife, for 
gradations, and he adds: “I should wish you 
never to make them without inspecting the model.” 
This phrase reminds us how usual it was to paint 
without the model. 

It should be pointed out that Oudry always 
uses the word brown to indicate shadows (as in his 
account of the lesson in flower-painting given by 
Largilliere), and this recalls the reign of a brown 
tone to colour every kind of shadow. On the 
other hand, he merely says ‘‘les clairs”’ (the light 
tones) for all the brilliant parts. 

Oudry’s advice reveals most excellent theories ; 
add to these the general influence of light due 
to the white decoration of interiors at this period, 


37 


THE. TECHNIQUE OF. PAINTING 


and the material examples given by gifted artists 
such as Watteau and Chardin, and we shall not 
be surprised to find a better technique during 
the eighteenth century. Methods, no doubt, still 
had their faults. Paint tended to whiten rather 
than to blacken.* It owed this freshness to some 
extent to an immoderate use of essential oils; but 
it had to pay for this by crude tones with a tendency 
to work through. On the whole, the material has 
stood well, when it has not been mixed too freely 
with fixed oils; and, as a rule, it does not deteriorate, 
Save as a consequence of accidents due to the pre- 
paration of the canvas or varnish—a deterioration 
not directly attributable to the work of the artist, but 
to his carelessness in the choice of his materials.t 
As far as technique is concerned, this was the 
best period of French painting, and one of the best 
in the whole history of oil-painting. The har- 
monious colour, frankly applied in a rich impasto 
that was never heavy, was warmed and refined 
by subsequent glazes. 

The most brilliant of its representatives, as 
technicians, were Watteau and Chardin. Watteau 
had studied the Rubenses in the Louvre with deep 
attention. Mons. de Caylus tells us this in a study, 
in which, unfortunately, he dwells upon Watteau’s 


* The following was Greuze’s method of painting, as given by Mérimée, who 
had it from a well-informed person: ‘* He always sketched a head in with a 
full impasto; when he wanted to paint over this sketch, he began by glazing 
it all over, and carried it further with transparent colours mixed into an 
unctuous paste, by the help of which his painting dried without sinking in. 
After this preparation, which he executed very rapidly, he modelled the head 
completely, beginning by putting in the high lights and arriving progressively 
at the shadows” (Mérimée, Za Peinture a ’hutile). 

t Referring to canvases, Oudry remarks: ‘‘ We are very negligent in this 
respect ; the tradesman who sells them thinks only of profit, and sometimes 
the painter who buys them thinks only of saving” (Réflexions sur la 
pratique de la Peinture, MS. at the Ecole des Beaux Arts). Painters were 
already beginning to reproach their tradesmen 


38 


2, Supreme dexterity of handling : THE BATHERS, by FRAGONARD. 
(Tne Louvre.) 


ma 


nie ee ace EE ee a 


¥ 
wy 


CHARDIN’S TECHNIQUE 


bad habits rather than his good ones. He accuses 
him of having sometimes used oil to excess, and of 
having lost something of his magnificent technique 
in the process. He liked to paint rapidly, and “to 
accelerate his effect and his execution,’ he painted 
‘* oreasily.”’ 

“It was his habit,” says Caylus, ‘when he 
worked over a picture, to rub it all over with oil, 
and to paint into this. This momentary advantage 
injured his pictures very considerably in the long 
run, and the injury was still further increased by a 
certain uncleanliness of habit which must have 
affected his colours. He very rarely cleaned his 
palette, and often went for days without re-setting 
it. His pot of oil, which he used so freely, was full 
of dirt and dust, and mixed with all sorts of 
colours which came out of the brushes he dipped 
in it.” 

Mariette also says: ‘‘ He was not very particular 
in the matter of cleanliness, and this, added to his 
abuse of oil, has done a great deal of harm to his 
pictures. Nearly all of them have suffered. They 
have lost the tone they had when they left his 
hands.” 

Gersaint, who also knew him personally, deplores 
his abuse of oil, and adds: ‘It must be admitted that 
some of his pictures are perishing in consequence 
day by day, that they have changed colour com- 
pletely, or have become very dirty, and that nothing 
can be done to mend matters; but, on the other 
hand, those which are free from this defect are 
admirable, and will always hold their own in the 
finest collections.” 

Chardin, less nervous and nechaie more 


Se 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
eters 
methodical, used a limpid, harmonious and safe 
material, which excited the admiration and the 
curiosity of his contemporaries. He was supposed 
to have technical secrets. It was reported that 
he put on the paint with his thumb, and that he had 
a receipt for keeping half-tones transparent. 

Here, by way of a curiosity, I subjoin the receipt 
which Cochin claimed to have known, and which 
he transmitted to Belle:— 


“Tint for harmonious effect in a picture, of which Mons. 
Chardin made excellent use: lake, Cologne earth, ultra- 
marine ash, and Italian pink. When the picture is finished, 
the painter should go over it again with these tints to 
harmonise it all. I have heard Mons. Chardin say that with 
these pigments, well and variously modified, he went over 
all his shadows, no matter of what colour they were. It is 
certain that this master was, of all the painters of his century, 
the one who best understood the magic harmony of a picture.” 
—Archives de l’Art frangais, Vol. I. ? 


Chardin’s method seems to have been simpler 
than this: it consisted in putting echoes of neigh- 
bouring tones upon objects. By this means he 
invested even his white tones with distinction. 
‘“Chardin’s whites!’’ said Decamps; “I can’t 
find any.” » 

Chardin accentuated his manner in his supreme 
works, his beautiful pastels. He came at last to 
put on spots of pure colour, decomposing a tone» 
into its several elementary colours. This method, 
which he used at first very discreetly, will be noted 
later ; it will be seen that it augments the vivacity 
and brilliance of a tone. It is probable that the 
practice was not deliberately adopted by him, as it 
was by his imitators; but that it was more or less 
accidental, a result of the ardour of execution in a 


40 


QUENTIN DE LA TOUR 


process which gives the artist tones that are easy 
to apply and to leave intact. We have already 
remarked more than once that transformations in 
the manner of painting, and even sometimes in 
the artist’s vision itself, have been the purely 
material consequences of a new method; people 
discuss and note the novelty after it has been 
unconsciously practised. 

Pastel seems to have influenced the painting of 
this century in more ways than one. 

This new process, which became at once of 
capital importance, is said to have been invented at 
Erfurt by a certain Thiele, who lived from 1685 
to 1752. It 1s also attributed to Madame Vernerin 
and to Mlle. Heid, Dantzig artists of the same 
period. Its popularity was due at first to Rosalba, 
and then to La Tour. Dumoustier had already 
made use of it a hundred years earlier, but very 
timidly, in simple touches and rubbings on his 
drawings. 

La Tour’s success caused much uneasiness to 
the oil painters, who set to work to imitate the 
soft effects of pastel.* And oil-painting became 
pasty, a kind of cream cheese. It may be also 
that pastel, in which, as La Tour said, it is so 
hard to let well alone, seduced artists into the 
methods of the improvisatore. 

There was yet another influence which tended 
to heighten the tones of oil-painting, and to 
foster its abuse of grays, blues, lilacs, pinks, and 
chalky whites. This was tapestry. 

* ‘Mons. La Tour has carried pastel to such a point, that one almost fears 
it may disgust people with oil-painting,” writes an amateur in 1753. Another 


says: “Pastel is preferred for portraits.” The Academy took the matter up, 
and closed its doors to the pastellists. 


4I 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


The Beauvais and Gobelins factories had begun 
to ask the fashionable masters for cartoons. 
Palettes became light to meet the requirements of 
this genre, as it was then practised. Boucher 
rejected all shade values. Light, tender, butterfly 
tints dominated; and yet his technique remained 
flexible and remarkable for its comprehension 
of the laws of colour, for its limpidity and 
solidity.* 

The interest in handling and virtuosity increased 
as the century advanced. And as if in response 
to some general expectation, the supreme impro- 
visatore made his appearance, the most brilliant 
sketcher ever known, the master of the sketch 
as a thing complete in itself, in which Nature 
is no more than a motive for variations in brush- 
play: Fragonard. Fragonard went further than 
any of his predecessors. He dared to improvise, 
and he prided himself upon it. We find him, 
boasting on his canvases: “‘ Frago painted this in’ 
an hour.” ; 

And Frago was the master who made water- 
colour fashionable. Just when the craft of good 
painting was about to expire, this process made 
its appearance, the lightest and most fluid imagin- 
able, the purest sort of glazing, a tinted water of 
no consistency, which evaporates on the slightest 
pretext; “a breakfast of sunshine,” as it has been 
called.t At this period an inquiring spirit, who 


* This high-toned, fat painting further brought about the vogue of body 
colour, the creamy tones of which agreed with the tastes of the day. 

t Taunay and Moreau the Younger practised it with stccess.. The popularity 
of the process continued during the Empire. But at this period water-colour 
was pale and insipid, and this was approved; brilliant colour was not 
considered proper to the genre. 

42 


REVIVAL OF ENCAUSTIC 


was also a distinguished amateur, the Comte de 
Caylus, undertook the study of encaustic painting as 
practised bythe ancients, and embodied the results of 
his researches and experiments in a paper which 
he read to the Académie des Belles-Lettres on 
July 29, 1755. Mons. de Caylus described various 
processes which seemed all more or less imperfect. 
He suggested that the painting was executed with 
powders specially prepared and mixed with wax, or 
that colour was applied on a layer of wax which 
was afterwards heated, or on a coat of wax as thin 
as varnish. 

Mons. de Caylus’ study attracted attention. 
Some applauded and began researches on their 
own account. Others ridiculed the whole busi- 
ness. Imitators came forward, such as Bachelier, 
whose process was praised by Diderot.* An 
enamel-painter, Bouquet, wrote: ‘‘ The new art 
of painting in cheese, invented for the laudable 
purpose of gradually discovering processes in 
painting inferior to those already in use.” In 
Germany eleodoric painting was evolved (Calan, 
of Leipzig). Mons. de Montpetit invented eludoric 
painting (1782). Charles, Baron von Taubenheim, 
finally mixed oil with the wax.t This process, 
and that of the Abbé Requeno, explained in a 
work which appeared at Venice in 1784, were the 
only ones which left any practical results. 

Researches of the same nature were pursued 
again after the Revolution by Castellan in 1815 
and by Paillot de Montabert in 1829. Castellan 


* Histoire et secret de la Peinture en ctre (1755, published anonymously). 
+ Charles, Baron de Taubenheim, Za Czre allide avec Thucle, ou la 


peinture de cire trouvée & Mannheim, 1779. 


43 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 

ee eeererenseerseneen enemies aii 
prescribed the use of colours ground with olive oil, 
laid upon a wax priming and dried by the help of 
a brazier. Montabert proposed to mix coloured 
wax with elemi and copal resins. A brush was 
used to apply cold colours to a wax panel ; they were 
then fused by the heat of a brazier, and the whole 
was covered with a layer of wax. 

We shall see presently that all these experi- 
ments, and others of a less practical nature, were 
destined to bring about a modern result of a very 
interesting kind in the process of encaustic, and 
also an invention of more general advantage, 
capable of saving the oil-painting of the old 
masters and of preserving that of the moderns, 
an invention which evokes Eméric David’s words 
in his Histowre de la Peinture aw Moyen Age: 
‘‘How can we say without deep regret that, if 
Michelangelo and Raphael had executed the Vati- 
can paintings in encaustic, these masterpieces 
would have retained all their freshness ?” 

The decadence was drawing near, soon the era 
of absolute disorder was to set in. No tradition 
was to survive. Painting was to become a hotch- 
potch without system, without delicacy, without 
forethought, which was doomed to perish within 
a few years. Before this gaping tomb one master, 
Reynolds, recoiled, drew back, offered his homage 
and worship to the admirable artists of the past, 
and pronounced the funeral oration of traditional 
painting. He was strangely absorbed in processes. 
Gifted with the analytical and critical spirit of 
decadent periods, he studied methods with the 
utmost ardour, and even went so far as to destroy 
pictures in order to discover how they were painted. 


44 


METHODS OF REYNOLDS 


But it would seem that the secrets he sought to 
penetrate were inviolable, or that their solution lay 
outside the scope of his inquiries, for his studies 
_ resulted in painting that evaporated, turned yellow, 
_ cracked, and perished even during his own lifetime. 
Surprised and greatly troubled at first, he ended 
by declaring philosophically: that the best paint- 
ing is that which is liable to crack. This philo- 
sophy, too frequently adopted after him, served 
but to aggravate the evil to come. Reynolds 
further inaugurated a very artistic but over-prompt 
and impulsive manner, which led too often to 
fragility and evanescence, in spite of its artistic 
beauty.* 

A contemporaryt describes his methods in terms 
which throw a strong light on the changes and 
premature old age of his pictures :— 


“On a light-coloured canvas he had already laid a ground 
of white, on which he meant to place the head, and which 
was still wet. He had nothing on his palette but flake white, 
lake, and black; and without making any previous sketch or 
outline, he began with much celerity to scumble these pigments 
together, till he had produced, in less than an hour, a likeness 
sufficiently intelligible, yet withal, as might be expected, cold 
and pallid to the last degree. At the second sitting he added, 
I believe, to the other colours, a little Naples yellow; but I 
do not remember that he used vermilion, neither then nor at the 
third trial; but itis to be noted that his Lordship (Lord Holder- 
ness, the sitter) had 2 countenance much heightened by scorbutic 
eruption. Lake alone might produce the carnation required. 
. . . His drapery was crimson velvet, copied from a coat he 


* “Fe often blocked in his picture like the Venetians in a full impasto and 
even in grtsazi/e. He then coloured it and carried it further with glazes ; after 
that, he worked over it again in the impasto, and always finished with glazes.” 
So writes Mérimée, who got his information from a pupil of Reynolds’, He 
adds: ‘‘ He painted with varnishes ; he tried several, and unfortunately, has 
left no record of his essays.” 

t Mason, in Anecdotes of Str Joshua Reynolds, published by Cotton. 


45 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
——$$—$ 


then wore, and apparently not only painted but glazed with 
lake, which has stood to this hour perfectly well, though the 
face, which, as well as the whole picture, was highly varnished 
before he sent it home, very soon ' faded, and soon after the 
forehead particularly cracked, almost to peeling off, which it 
would have done long since had not his pupil, Doughty, 
repaired it.” 


The Nineteenth Century. 

One of the destructive agents which did most 
to aggravate the disorder of the times was bitumen. 
Admiration for the old masters tended to the 
popularity of yellow tones, which bitumen produces 
immediately, without the help of years. And then 
bitumen is an easy colour, which lends itself readily 
to all kinds of offices and all kinds of tones, and 
soon satisfies the painter who cannot get the rich 
quality of a dark tone. During the first half 
of the nineteenth century it became the greatest 
enemy of painting, and the greatest friend of the 
painter. 

Its first friend and first victim was Prudhon. 

Prudhon, a gentle, sensitive dreamer, blocked 
in grisaules which he coloured faintly with glazes. 
His poetic ideal inclined him to lay stress on 
modelling and values. Bitumen became his easiest 
medium of expression.* He revived the use of 
canvases with a red priming, at least in his later 
portraits. He made the most of this groundwork, | 
and rubbed it over with a purplish tint, which 
sufficed for the shadows of the neck, the mouth, the 


* Prudhon drew in grisaz/e and sometimes in a bluish tone ; then he glazed 
very lightly. Thus he prepared his picture with fresh, rosy tones, and warmed 
up his colour by degrees. He used to say to his pupils that the less solid tones 
should be put below, that they might be protected by the more solid ones, 


40 


PREDOMINANCE AND ELIMINATION OF LOCAL TONE 


1. Local tone modelled by values. Importance of the shadows, restriction 
of the lights: Mme Jarreg, by PRUD’HON. (The Louvre.) 


2. Absence of local tone, no shadows. The modelling obtained by 
juxtaposed tones : WOMAN READING, by RENOIR. (The Luxembourg.) 


ae 


PRUDHON’S TECHNIQUE 


nostrils and the eyes. But he imperilled the solidity 
of his painting by the use of processes on which he 
seems to have counted for its preservation. He 
composed a kind of pomade on the following 
receipt: ‘‘A quartern of pearl mastic dissolved in 
spirits of wine; when it is melted it must be 
strained through a very fine cloth; after this it 
should be washed in several waters until the 
water no longer becomes cloudy as one kneads 
the mastic in it; after this it must be melted 
in oil, to which a quarter of a cake of virgin 
wax has been added. Into this must be worked 
sufficient oil to make a jelly, and the whole 
must be well ground to make it fit for use. 
When the operation has been carried out with 
spirits of wine, the mixture must be melted with 
oil in a bain-marie.” — 

The sensitive Prudhon was an isolated pioneer, 
who had no following till fifty years later, when 
Henner and Carriére imitated him. Before his 
manner had come into favour a reaction set in 
against the eighteenth-century masters. Painters 
desired to go back to Nature, to the study of the 
model, but, as David said, by the way of “ antiquity 
in the raw.”” Once more the coldness of sculpture 
invaded painting. Blocking in and under-painting 
were abandoned; a drawing was made, with a slight 
rubbing of Cassel earth, and on this the artist 
painted directly and in detail, pre-occupied with the 
passage on which he was working, and no longer 
keeping the effect of the whole well in mind, as the 
earlier masters had done.* 


* See David’s unfinished canvas in the Louvre, 7he Oath of the Tennis 
Ceurt, where the heads of the personages are finished, and the bodies merely 


47 


4 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


David’s best picture, The Coronation of Napoleon, 
has been very justly described as a procés-verbal. 
Each figure is carefully and individually treated, 
regardless of its surroundings. The whole work is 
petrified, and handling has entirely disappeared, as 
a result of the reaction against eighteenth-century 
methods. ‘The painter has gone back to the smooth 
texture of the seventeenth-century masters, but has’ 
neglected the agreeable effect at which they aimed. 
“In this painting,” says Delacroix, “there is no 
skin anywhere.” 

As chiaroscuro does not always respect drawing, 
it too was discarded. Even colour was attacked 
by this reformation. Delacroix has noted the 
consequences. ‘ David and his school,” he writes, 
‘‘imagined that they could produce the tones Rubens 
got with frank and vivid colours such as bright 
green, ultramarine, etc., by means of black and white 
to make blue, black and yellow to make green, red 
ochre and black to make violet, and so on. They 
also used earths, such as umber, Cassel, and ochres, 
etc. . . . Each of these relative greens and blues 
plays its part in the attenuated scale, especially 
when the picture is placed in a vivid light which 
penetrates the molecules and gives them the utmost 
brilliance of which they are capable. But if the 
picture is hung in the shade or parallel to the rays of 
light, the earths become earths again, and the tones 
lose all play, so to speak. Above all, if the picture be 


drawn upon the white canvas. The obsession of the painter by antique 
sculpture was such, that all the figures are naked. They were clothed only 
after the dignity of their modelling had been assured. The drawing was as 
careful and solid as the colour was negligent. Delacroix wrote in his 
Journal: ‘‘Instead of penetrating the spirit of antiquity and combining its 
study with that of Nature, David was, we see, the echo of a period when the 
antique was a fashion.” 
48 


RESULTS OF DAVID’S TEACHING 
ra 
placed near a richly coloured work such as a Titian 
or a Rubens, it appears what it really is: earthy, 
dull, and lifeless. ‘Dust thou art, and unto dust 
shalt thou return.’ ” 

Finally, the use of Cassel earth to rub upon the 
drawing before painting, and the habit of varnishing 
too soon (which began to obtain as a result of 
the Salon exhibitions) tended to produce those 
cracks which we see in the works of painters of 
this school, Girodet, Lethiére, Gros, etc. 

Such were the results of a revolution, narrow in 
spite of its apparent independence, the leader of 
which was guilty of a grave fault, that of despising 
everything connected with technique and processes. 
Did not David say one day to someone who was dis- 
cussing these things: “I knew all that before I knew 
anything”? It is true that such knowledge should 
have been mastered by the novice, but it is all the 
more necessary, in that it constitutes the basis of an 
artistic career. It might be allowed that a painter, 
having once possessed it, may forget it afterwards, 
and carry it into practice unconsciously; but 
David’s dictum, passing into a maxim, clung to 
painting, and kept it in a state of perpetual 
uneasiness. What is the good of studying so insig- 
nificant a branch of knowledge? said the artist. 
Each one, victim alike of his liberty and of his 
ignorance, desired to create his own technique, and 
the majority spent their lives seeking it, in a series 
of experiments and disasters, without arriving at 
any definite method. 

Gros, an involuntary renovator, saved painting 
from David’s glacial influence almost in spite of 
himself. To a pupil who showed him a poorly 


P. 49g E 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


furnished palette,* he made a remark which in itself 
proclaims the reaction: ‘One cannot paint in a 
Spartan style.” To another he wrote: ‘‘ Do not 
fall with your nose on the canvas in your anxiety to 
finish.’ He loved colour, and he thought of the 
general effect. He advised pupils to work for 
“cohesion of movement, of line, of light and 
shade, for general effect.” He also recommended 
them to work up all parts together, so that there 
might always be homogeneity, no matter what the 
degree of advancement. | 

The masterpieces gathered into the Louvre by 
Napoleon’s conquests, a feast of colour which 
fairly intoxicated Géricault and Delacroix, gave 
arms to this reaction, an ardent movement towards 
the picturesque, which delighted in colour and all 
its elements. 

At this moment, when impasto was about to hold 
exaggerated sway, and when paint was about to be 
laid thick as a wall on the canvas, a little invention 
of a purely material, but very practical, kind greatly 
facilitated its use. For a long time past artists had 
ceased to grind their own colours; dealers manu- 
factured them, and sold them in bladders; the 


* David's palette was as follows : White lead, Naples yellow, yellow ochre, 
ochre of ru, Roman ochre, red brown, burnt Siena, crimson lake, Cassel 
earth, ivory black, peach or vine black, Prussian blue, ultramarine, mineral 
gray ; cinnabar and vermilion beneath these. Towards the end of his career, 
he added light chrome and dark chrome, but only for draperies. 

Géricault’s palette : Vermilion, white, Naples yellow, yellow ochre, Verona 
brown, ochre of ru, raw Siena, red brown, burnt Siena, lake, Prussian blue, 
peach black, ivory black, Cassel earth, bitumen. Géricault painted on the 
bare canvas, without any preliminary preparation ; he finished bit by bit, like 
David, without going over his work, and without glazes. He began the re- 
action against the thin painting of the Davidians by painting heavily. 

Ingres’ palette : White lead, silver white, Naples yellow, yellow ochre, ochre 
of ru, raw Verona brown, raw Siena, burnt Siena, vermilion, cinnabar, red 
brown, Van Dyck brown, cobalt, mineral gray, Prussian blue, ivory black, 
scarlet madder, 

50 


DECAMPS’ HANDLING 

a al A ll a Te 
colour, ill-protected against the air, dried quickly. 
About the year 1824 an Englishman proposed the 
use of tin tubes for the preservation of colours which, 
like lake and Prussian blue, deteriorate in bladders. 
The invention was rewarded by a silver medal and 
a premium of ten guineas given by the Society 
of Arts in London. Such was the origin of 
the tin tubes now universally used. And yet 
Mérimée, who speaks of the matter in 1830, in his 
book on oil-painting, says: ‘‘It is hardly probable 
that many English painters have adopted this 
expedient.” It isthe fate of inventions destined to 
wide popularity not to be appreciated at first. 

Artists gave themselves up to liberty of handling 
with thoughtless enthusiasm. In some cases this 
amounted almost to frenzy. Decamps obtained an 
impasto which was a kind of crust. ‘“‘ It is rocky, 
masonic, crinkly, scratched, rubbed, fretted, float- 
ing in bitumenous glazes, full of accidents, and 
yet grandiose and passionate in spite of all this 
alchemy of the laboratory, the evils of which will 
become more and more pronounced with time.” * 
Fromentin also speaks somewhere, in a general 
way, of the brush “dragging after it the viscous 
mortar which accumulates on the salient points of 
objects and gives us an illusion of relief, because 
the canvas itself has become more salient by its 
use.”’ | 

There was one artist who paused to reflect and 
argue. This was Delacroix. He is the more 
interesting in that his researches presage the future. 
But if no one ever reasoned better, no one ever 
vacillated more in practice. Much as we may 

* J. Breton, Nos Peintres du Siecle, 


51 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


admire Delacroix as observer, thinker, and analyst, 
it will be prudent to make reservations in our 
appreciation of him as a craftsman, an executant, 
a master of technique. Delacroix possessed a 
fine eye, the servant of a very open intelligence, 
but, alas !—his pictures remain to prove it and we 
may admit it now—his hand was restless, hesitating, 
and capricious. 

_ How many critics, confusing the theorist and 
the practitioner, have gone astray, and credited him 
with a conservative talent. Delacroix prepared the 
way for the new vision, and far from uniting the 
past and the present, he broke down tradition per- 
haps even more than David. His dangerous and 
intoxicating example has led many artists to that 
technique, or rather absence of technique, which 
leads to painting in a kind of frenzy, careless of 
the future—in other words, to disregard of the 
physical laws of colour, and the sacrifice of every- 
thing to brilliance, often ephemeral, and to expres- 
sion, often exaggerated. 

The modern painter with the most elementary 
knowledge of the properties of pigments exclaims 
with horror when he reads in Delacroix’ Journal 
of the mixtures the master tried, and even recom- 
mended. Delacroix painted with the most complete 
technical ignorance. True, he had misgivings 
about the future of painting; he knew it to be 
fragile, but it never occurred to him to combat this 
fragility, to seek out its causes, to distinguish 
between durable colours and dangerous mixtures. 
Heworked with absolute fatalism. Thus he pre- 
scribes rubbings, glazes, under-paintings, mixtures 
of virgin wax and oil of the most imprudent kind 


52 


DELACROIX ON COLOUR 
SUE 


A certain picture was primed with umber and 
mummy. A woman was painted with Cassel 
earth and white in the shadows; elsewhere we 
see Prussian blue and white; light chrome in 
the high lights. Lakes that evaporate and ver- 
milions which blacken, were all used by Delacroix ; 
nothing could have been less in accordance with 
traditional practice. These audacities were also 
errors, andthe humblest student at the Ecole des 
Beaux Arts would avoid them to-day like the 
plague.* 

Delacroix is even less of a traditionalist when 
he undertakes to increase the splendour of a tint 
by division of its constituents; he then becomes 
the precursor of Impressionism, pure and simple. 

Does he not reveal himself as the restorer of 
vivid colour, and even as the precursor of open-air 
painting, in contrast to the Davidians, who loved 
dead colours, and the Romanticists, who were 
fascinated by red tints? He wrote in his Journal: 


“From my window I see a joiner working, naked to the 
waist, in a gallery. Comparing the colour of his body to 


* Delacroix was not blind to his own weaknesses, and he acknowledged 
them with all sincerity in matters of construction and drawing. The aged 
painter Gigoux used to tell how his friend Francais, the landscape painter, 
at the time when he was working as a lithographer, was commissioned to 
engrave Delacroix’ Bargue du Don Juan. We went to the master to ask his 
advice. Delacroix stared at his picture with despair and stupefaction. 

** Here,” he said himself, ‘*I have got a shoulder in profile and a breast 
confronting the spectator. Here is a man dying of hunger in the middle of 
the ocean, and I have made him fat and hearty. It is absurd.” 

“ But,” said Frangais, “ you might touch it up a little.” 

“Oh, no! there would be too much to do to it. . . . At that time I was in 
a fever when I was producing. I can’t help it. Do the best you can. 
Audran used to correct Lebrun when he engraved him. Well, you mst 
correctme., You are quite able to do so.” 

In his heart, he cared more for expression than correctness. He proved this 
one day by saying to someone who pointed out an error of construction: ‘TI 
could, of course, correct it ; but then I should risk losing the expression, which 


is very good.” 
23 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


that of the outside wall, I notice how strongly the half-tones 
of flesh are coloured as compared with inert matter. I 
noticed the same thing yesterday in the Place Saint Sulpice, 
where a loafer had climbed up on the statues of the 
fountain, in the sun. Dull orange in the carnations, the 
strongest violets for the cast shadows, and golden reflections 
in the shadows which were relieved against the ground. 
The orange and violet tints dominated alternately, or mingled. 
The golden tone had green in it. Flesh only shows its true 
colour in the open air, and above all in the sun. When a 
man puts his head out of the window he is quite different to 
what he was inside. Hence the folly of studio studies, which 
do their best to falsify this colour.” 


Elsewhere he writes again :— 


“T see from my window the shadows of people passing in 
the sun on the sands of the port [he was at Dieppe] ; the sand 
here is violet in reality, but it is gilded by the sun; the 
shadows of these persons are so violet that the ground about 
them becomes yellow. Would it be going too far to say that 
in the open air, and more especially in the effect I have under 
my eyes, the green reflections must be the result of the ground, 
which is golden, being illuminated both by the sun, which is 
yellow, and by the sky, which is blue, these two tones necessarily 
producing a green tone? Itis obvious that in the sun these two 
effects are more pronounced and even almost crude; but when 
they disappear, the relations must be the same. If the ground 
is less golden, owing to the absence of the sun, the reflection 
will appear less green—in a word, less vivid.” 


No reasoning could be sounder,* but Delacroix, 
feverish and uneasy, was unable to materialise his 
thought when he took palette and brushes in hand, 
and set himself to paint; his material betrayed 
him, because, lacking all confidence in it, he knew 


* He said: “Give me mud, and I will make the skin of a Venus out of it, 
if you allow me to surround it as I please,” a dictum which proves that he had 
instinctively divined the laws Chevreul discovered at this same period, when 
he proved scientifically that a colour changes in appearance according to its 
surroundings. 

24 


TURNER 


not how to treat it, and he spent his life in making 
experiments and trying the most contradictory 
receipts. 

Nevertheless, he heralded and prepared the 
enlightenment which signalised the end of the 
century, the renewal of, or rather the actual 
progress in, vision and expression.* 

Contemporary with Delacroix, there was in 
England an extraordinary artist, at once conven- 
tional and eccentric, for he was inspired by Claude 
Lorrain, and himself in turn became the inspirer 
of the Impressionists. This was Turner. Be- 
ginning as a water-colour painter, he perfected 
water-colours by the substitution of mineral for 
vegetable pigments. His practice in this medium 
gave him lightness, fluidity, and brilliance. He 
very often laid on his colour in crude tones which 
were harmonised by distance—an unconscious 
application of the principle of colour-division, 
Unfortunately, his technique became lawless, and 
he had a mania for chrome yellow in his oil 
pictures.t He lived the life of a recluse, and had 
no influence among his contemporaries. He died 
intoxicated with light, murmuring “The sun is God.” 

This cry was a prophecy which the end of the 
century was to seerealised. But the era of bitumen, 
of dull, earthy colour and of heavy handling lasted 
in France until after 1870. 


* Baudelaire, who often wrote after hearing Delacroix express his 
thoughts, says: ‘The best way to know if a picture is melodious is to look 
at it from a distance at which we can grasp neither the subject nor the lines. 
If it is melodious, it has a sense already, and has already taken its place in the 
repertory of remembrances” (Curzosités esthétiques). 

+ His friend Chantrey, the sculptor, once went to an exhibition with him on 
a very cold day, and stopping in front of one of Turner’s pictures, he held out 
his hands to the loaded chrome as if to warm them, saying: “ My dear 
Turner, this is the only comfortable place in the gallery,” 


pe 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
(Se ee enstssnssaesnreeeteunatnneineeets 

An original artist, Courbet, rebelled against the 
prevailing academic coldness; under a revolution- 
ary disguise, he led art back to the good tradition 
of broad, free painting. But he was a lover of 
sensation and eccentricity; he wielded a kind of 
trowel rather than a paint-brush, and aggravated 
the general tendency to heaviness of impasto by 
a new practice, the use of the palette knife.* 
Following his example, many painters laid on their 
paint as if they were plastering a wall. 

Meanwhile a very curious return to the past took 
place in England. The movement known as Pre- 
Raphaelism expressed itself in the tight, precise 
handling and the vivid, vibrating tones of the 
German and Florentine Primitives. 

This school, in spite of its revolutionary 
character, exercised a beneficent influence; it 
made indirectly for progress. Its champion, 
Ruskin, has written passages that agree with 
Delacroix’ theories. He taught that all ordinary 
shadows should be of some colour, and never 
black, nor anything near black, but always 
luminous, and that shade is just as much colour as 
light. 

The Pre-Raphaelites, sworn foes of the browns 
that reigned supreme in the French School, ignored 
values, and concerned themselves only with colours. 
They prescribed execution by successive details and 
passages, without much regard for the general effect; 
they sought for objective definition and complete 
finish of details, and for splendour of colour, neglect- 
ing harmony ; they condemned individualty of touch, 


* New in France. Constable had used it with great vigour and success a 
generation earlier.—[ 77. > 


IMPRESSIONISM 

a SA ee ee 
the “virtuosity which is the outcome of the artist’s 
vanity.” * Execution was for them a factor to be 
concealed, and to obtain vivacity and ensure the 
durability of their colours, they adopted a very dry 
material, with but little admixture of oil. This 
return to the methods of the past, which went 
so far as to deny the interest of modern life, was 
necessarily short-lived, yet it had a basis of truth in 
its revolt against brown colour, and its desire for 
brilliance of tone. A new movement, which had 
its origin in France, sought to controvert the 
formulas of the studios. Its leaders who, although 
ignorant of the precepts of Delacroix’ Journal, 
had begun to put them into practice, borrowed 
the eagerness for vivacity of tone shown by the 
Pre-Raphaelites. Their object was to paint the 
moment, to paint it exactly, to surprise it in 
the irradiation of light. This movement was 
Impressionism. 

The Impressionist holds that the principal 
person in a picture is the light, and that the subject _ 
treated is the effect of this light at the moment of 
painting. The importance of the light seems to 
him so great that /ocal colour—that is to say, the 
actual tint of an object—ceases to exist for him; 
what does exist is the coloration of the object at a 
given moment in a given light. The Impressionist 
discerns and notes the expressive detail of this 
chosen moment; he becomes the chronicler of 
an instant, the historian of the ephemeral, the 
prophet of the frail and evanescent. A rapid 
and subtle craftsman, he forswears the slow, 


= Opinion of the painter, G. F, Watts, 


27 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


wise methods of the past, and works long pondered 
and matured. He is an artist of vision, not of 
reflection. 

Light! This is his chief aim. He obtains this 
light, not by the opposition of darks, as before, 
but by spreading it all over his canvas. As 
drawing comes after light, for him, and as the 
visual impression takes the place of literary 
imagination of the subject, or, in other words, 
composition, the whole system of painting is 
upset. ‘To ensure freshness of tone, certain of the 
Impressionists adopt colour-division— that is to 
say, they do not mix their colours, but lay them 
on in thin lines of pure colour which blend at a 
certain distance, and produce optical fusion.* This 
method was not systematically practised by all the 
Impressionists; but, on the other hand, they all 
banished from their palettes the neutral, earthy 
tints, and retained only the brilliant colours. They 
then applied themselves to the study of all the 
apparently neutral tints in Nature. The Impres- 
sionists eschewed both black and white, and Monet 
painted a Hoar-frost (in the Luxembourg), which 
materialised an exquisite vision of colour in 
nominal whites.| Nor do they conceive of any 
shadow without colour. Monet painted the 
Porch of Rouen Cathedral in a medley of 


* See, on p. 78, that the actual elementary colours when blended do not 
produce the theoretical binary colours exactly; they are duller, The 
Impressionists would put a blue and a red side by side, on the ground that the 
violet obtained by optical fusion would be more brilliant than that produced 
by mixing the two colours on the palette. 

+ I shall choose my examples mainly among works accessible to all—that is 
to say, the pictures in the Luxembourg. But as fine examples of the 
coloration of white, I may further instance the half-tones of a white table-cloth 
in a S¢z//-Lzfe, by Monet, belonging to Mons. Durand-Ruel, and the shirt- 
front of the man with the opera-glass in Renoir’s Bazgnoire. 


58 


IMPRESSIONISM 
Se 
brilliant smudges, a veritable feast for the eyes. 
Line, which the masters of tradition considered 
the essential framework of every picture, was 
sacrificed to atmosphere. Delacroix wrote in a 
passage that has become famous: “I open my 
window and look at the-landscape. The idea 
of a line never suggests itself to me.’ Monet 
painted the Gare Saint Lazare, its rails and 
platforms, and yet, in this geometrical subject, as 
it might be called, line is quite subordinated ; 
what strikes us is the colour, the smoke, the 
atmosphere. 

Renoir painted the face of a Reading Girl with 
the light reflected on it from her book. The 
vividly red mouth is surrounded by yellow spots; 
higher up red appears abruptly, and then violet. 
The tones, which disregard local colour, are 
juxtaposed without unity, without any apparent 
transition. Yet from a distance we see a fresh face 
of living flesh. In landscape the tones mingle and 
contrast even more strongly. Pissaro’s red roofs 
form an agglomeration of tones, in which the 
handling challenges attention at close quarters; 
but seen from a distance it vibrates with light and 
freshness. 

People laughed and exclaimed at the sight of 
this painting, but palettes became more vivid. 
The outcry against the new style did not discount 
its influence. ‘ They shoot us,” said Degas, “but 
they rifle our pockets.” 

Moreover, the Impressionists made no pretence 
of having broken with the past. They hailed 
Delacroix and Turner as precursors, and claimed 
connection with tradition through Watteau and 


29 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
nS 
Claude Lorrain. They might also have cited 
Chardin, as we have seen.* : 

About 1880, Monet’s Impressionism—a thought- 
ful, but by no means a systematic or scientific 
method—was succeeded by “Neo-Impressionism, 
which set itself to work out chromatic principles to 
their logical conclusion. Certain scientific works 
on optics had impressed some of the younger artists. 
After Chevreul and theories based on the analysis 
of the solar spectrum, came Humboldt with his 
Studies of colour-perception. Then Charles Henry 
attempted to connect these questions with painting, 
and to reduce Monet’s non-systematic practice to 
definite principles. 

The theory of complementary colours attracted 
the attention of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. 
Impressionism became scientific, and was christened 
Pointillisme. Monet’s smudges, which had been 
applied in the direction of the plane, and had con- 
formed to the character of the material represented, 
were transformed into minute, round, equal touches, 
regular and unloaded. Sketches were made, on 
which the relations of tones were noted; then 
they were systematised and connected by logically 
deduced gradations. 

Just when these schools arose, an important 
modification came about in teaching. 

Towards the close of the Second Empire, and 
during the first years of the Third Republic, Mons. 
Lecoq de Boisbaudran formed certain talented 
young artists, among them Cazin and Lhermitte. 


* El Greco shows an interest in colour-division in certain of his works, and 
so also does Velazquez in his early works painted at Seville, and in his 
Assumption of the Virgin, at Madrid. L. Girardot noticed this and drew my 
attention to it, 


we 


IMPRESSIONISM AND NEO-IMPRESSIONISM 


1, Separate touches of pure colour, applied in conformity with the configu- 
ration of the surface, to get the modelling : Rocks oF BEtLiE-IsteE, 
by Monet. (The Luxembourg.) 


2. Jtegular touches, scientifically juxtaposed. Modelling and form 
sacrificed to light : VENICE, by SIGNAC. (The Luxembourg.) 


EXERCISES IN COLOUR 
His method is set forth in various treatises. 
One of these, L’Education dela Mémoire pittoresque, 
deserves attention. 

Lecoq de Boisbaudran had composed a series of 
coloured models, arranged in a progressive order of 
difficulty. They showed flat tints on geray-toned 
paper. The pupils were given similar sheets 
of gray paper, on which they were required to 
reproduce the models. The flat tones were at first 
very simple, two in number, and contrasted, as two 
complementary tones contrast. — 

Some of the pupils copied them directly, yet 
found it very difficult to reproduce them from 
memory. Others, after examining them carefully, 
succeeded in learning them by heart, so to Say. 
Mons. Lecog de Boisbaudran stated that he had 
observed a great natural difference in the power of 
memorising forms and colours. Very few persons 
combine the two aptitudes. The exercise he set 
his pupils was designed to produce an equilibrium, 
and correct a tendency to see gray or yellow. It is 
the first exercise that should be given to the 
young painter. | 

Pigments, however, continued to be used with- 
out any care for their durability, or for the future 
of the picture; the greatest disorder persisted, 
the utmost indifference obtained, and the most 
fatal practices were prevalent. 

Pigment was manipulated purely with a view to 
handling, and this handling artists sought to make 
as apparent as possible. Some desired it to be 
brilliant and facile; others, awkward and falsely 
ingenuous. Thus the manner of painting was more 
diversified than ever, : 

61 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


Baudelaire, a great writer who was also a very 
acute art critic, wrote these words referring to the 
Salon of 1846, words which are even more to the 
point now than when they were penned :—_ 


“There were still schools under Louis XV., and there was 
one under the Empire—a school, that is to say, a creed which 
implies the impossibility of doubt. There were pupils united 
by common principles, obeying therule of a powerful chief... . 
Few men have the right to rule, for few have a great passion. 
And as everyone wants to rule nowadays, no one knows how 
to govern himself. . . . In the schools, which are merely the 
forces of organised invention, individuals really worthy of the 
name absorb the weak ; and this is just, fora large production 
is nothing but a thought with a thousand arms. 

“This glorification of the individual has necessitated an 
infinite division of the territory of art. Individuality, that 
small property, has eaten up collective originality. ... It is 
the painter who has killed painting.” 


Public exhibitions put a premium upon char- 
latanry. How is an artist to attract attention 
among the crowd of competitors? The submission 
which was formerly a condition of success is now 
considered a hindrance and a _ confession of 
impotence; tradition is despised.* The artist 
must be independent, must prove it, and attract 
attention. Handling is a means to this end, and 
sois colour. They are turned to account. New 
executive processes are invented, new bases in 
colour. As they are imitated directly they are 
noticed, they are very soon depreciated. Then 
they are renewed. This gives rise to the 


* Even by serious artists. As Fromentin said: ‘* The individualism of 
modern methods is only the effort of each to imagine what he has never 
learnt ; in certain technical dexterities, we are conscious of the laborious 
expedients of spirits ill at ease ; and nearly always the so-called originality of 
modern processes hides an incurable dissatisfaction,” 


62 


COLOUR-DIVISION 


1. Touches of 


ling of the forms: UNDER THEOLIVE-TREES, by HENRI MarTIN, 


pure colour, applied in hatchings that follow the 


model- 
(The Sorbonne.) 


a 
ete 
Saeco: 


oe 


es 


2. Rounded touches, subdued tints : Portrart, by E. LAuRENT. 
(The Luxembourg.) 


VARIETY OF TECHNIQUE 
re 
innumerable popular formulas which, after a sudden 
vogue, are abandoned for forty years. 

The neutral tone of bitumen, discredited and 
reputed dangerous, was replaced by a warm, russet 
tone, a sort of Van Dyck brown, which predomi- 
nated for sometime. This brown tone led, by way 
of reaction, to the very light pale tints due to 
Bastien-Lepage and his success. Impressionism 
then brought a bluish tone into favour; from this, 
the transition to violet was easy, and all shadows 
become violet. Yellow cadmium followed, no doubt 
by way of reaction. Now green is in the 
ascendant; on the palettes of the indolent it takes 
the place of tones difficult to grasp and to render 
truthfully. 

Bitumen, red, white, blue, violet, cadmium, 
green—I had almost forgotten black, which gained 
for Cottet and his friends the title of the Black 
Band—there is scarcely a colour which has not 
been used as a key for a time; the whole of the 
palette has been tried in turn.* 

Handling has followed fashions no less varied 
and contradictory. Artists painted on a kind of 
rough plaster with very thin liquid pigment, then 
with a fat impasto laid directly on the canvas; soon 
the colour-division of the Impressionists came into 
favour; finally, an impasto mixed with essential 
oils was adopted. 

And now every kind of vision and of manner 
meet in harmony or contrast. We have at once 
vivid colour like that of Besnard, and grisailles 

* Dinet has told mea story, which shows how entirely without conviction 
the adoption of these fashions sometimesis. Someone asked a certain painter : 


** Do you really see shadows violet, like that?” ‘Not yet,” hereplied. ‘ But 
I am quite satisfied; I feel that I am beginning to see them so.” 


63 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


like Carriére’s, russet tones like those of Ménard, 
and black ones like those of Cottet, the transparent 
rubbings of Lhermitte and the strong impasto of 
Bonnat, the divisionist technique of Monet, and the 
smooth, homogeneous material of Maxence. 

And, strange inconsequence ! in the face of 
this predominance of formula and handling, the spec- 
tator is warned unceasingly ‘‘not to look too closely.” 

But the fact is that painting has acquired 
a new and special interest, that of handling, 
which makes it as interesting to examine 
closely as to contemplate from a distance. The 
initiated are well aware of this. They enjoy a 
double pleasure: from a distance they think 
of Nature, recall and compare ; nearer, they 
think of the painter’s craft, his difficulties, his 
technique. A decadent art if you will, but 
nevertheless, indisputably art, and an art which 
certainly appeals to us, to our Olasé, dilettante tastes. 

Our dilettantism has even led a certain number 
of artists to react against the mania for handling, 
and against the virtuosity of the brush. They try 
deliberately to be awkward and artless. This taste 
for false naiveté has resulted, during the last few 
years, in a kind of painting which sets handling of 
any kind at naught. A sort of applied unskilfulness 
triumphs with simulated candour. The artist is 
clumsy in his drawing, in his notation of tone, 
in everything. 

After this it might be isk Heil that everything 
has been tried in painting, and that our epoch has 
raised the Tower of Babel of art. Our crowd of 
artists practise the formulas of every period and of 
every school; they speak all languages, dead and 


04 


WORKED UP IMPASTO 


2, Various processes used and left very apparent, by MOoNTIcELLI. 


(Chateau Collection, ) 


VARIETY OF MODERN PROCESSES 


living; they indulge in cants and dialects ; they 
perorate and they stammer: they experiment 
in Esperanto and in the babble of babes and 
sucklings. 

Unfortunately, the object of all these technical 
obsessions is to dazzle, and not to build up solidly. 
This is the evil. Adopted imprudently, without 
any care for the health of the picture, but with 
a desire to awaken curiosity and to rivet atten. 
tion, they end, as a rule, in disaster. The 
charlatanry of the juggler becomes a necessity in 
the crowd of the Salon ; the neighbour must be 
eclipsed at all costs. For the last hundred years, 
exhibitions have been the life of painters, but they 
are death to painting. 

Together with these essays in diversity of the 
method of expression, all processes have been tried 
with equal ardour and great variety of execution. 
Pastel has regained the favour it enjoyed in the 
eighteenth century, but it has not escaped the 
general taste for arich impasto. Instead of the thin 
rubbings characteristic of its earlier practitioners, 
it shows hatchings and loadings; it imitates 
oil-painting, which it has ended by resembling, 
whereas in the eighteenth century it was pastel 
which modified painting. 

Water-colour also is treated with great diversity 
of handling. Boldness and brio appear side by 
side with prudence and coldness. Body colour is 
freely used, and even tempera, and these are also 
introduced in pastels. 

Finally, even encaustic has ré-appeared. Messrs. 
Cros and Henry* have got together all the ancient 

* H. Cros and Ch. Henry, L’Encaustique et les Procédés antiques, 1884, 


P. 05 as 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


en 
documents, and, with the help of Mons. de Caylus’ 
receipts for the admixture of wax and pigments, 
have constructed a method the results of which are 
very interesting. 

‘Progress in artistic vision, decadence in method 
of execution—such, in brief, is the verdict that 
must be pronounced on the nineteenth century.* It 
has given us works of art worthy of the past, but 
their fragility is extreme. We see them fading and 
passing away from day to day. The old masters 
used pigments less solid than ours, and yet the 
majority of their pictures, now several centuries old, 
are-—when the restorers have respected them—in a 
better state of preservation than ours after the 
lapse of a few years. 


* «The truth which would make us all agree remains to be established ; 
its object would be to demonstrate that there is in painting a craft which can 
be learnt, and consequently, which can and should be taught, an elementary 
method which can and should be transmitted; that this craft and this method 
are as necessary in painting, as the art of speaking and writing correctly are 
for those who use speech or pen; that there is no disadvantage in these 
elements being common to all painters ; and that to claim distinction by our 
dress when we fail to achieve it by our person is a poor and unworthy fashion 
of proving that we are somebody. Formerly, the exact reverse was the rule, 
as is shown by the perfect unity of the various schools, in which a family 
likeness was to be noted in the greatest and most distinct individualities. 
Now this family likeness came from a simple education, uniform in every case, 
and, as we see, eminently salutary. What was this education, not a trace of 
which now remains to us ? 

“This is what I should like to see taught. . . . It might almost be 
supposed that the art of painting is a lost secret, and that the last really 
accomplished masters who practised it have carried away the key of the 
mystery withthem. . . .” (F romentin, Les Mattres d’ Autrefots), 


66 


HIEROGLYPHS 


Senses eee, 


PERCEPTION 


“I know what it will become” is a phrase on which only the 
consummate artist can venture.— Dederof. 


Colour-Vision in Different Periods. 

When primitive man desired to express and 
record his thoughts, he had recourse to signs which 
became at once writing, drawing, and sometimes 
painting. These signs, in the guise of hieroglyphs, 
showed images of reality destined to embody ideas, 
Both the Egyptians and the Greeks used one 
word to denote the action of writing and that of 
painting. 

This common origin of art and letters recalls a 
phrase of the painter Couture in his Entretiens 
aA telier :— 

“The artist was the first writer. . . . The 
greatest writers are those who describe or paint 
best; perhaps indeed they are but incomplete 
painters, who, had they reached one degree higher 
in human intelligence, would have used the divine 
language of painting to express their thoughts. ... 
Homer tells us that Nausicia was beautiful, but 
Phidias shows us that beauty.” And Couture 
concludes by placing Phidias, Michelangelo and 
Raphael above Homer, Virgil and Shakespeare. 

Couture goes too far. The sculptor and the 
painter have so far an easier task, in that they can 

67 F232 | 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
eS 
express only one moment of the action; the writer 
has to lead up to it, to work it out, to show its 
origin, its development, and its results. His task 
is at once harder and more delicate. And when 
Couture declares that ‘‘the poet’s creation is 
enhanced or diminished according to the imagina- 
tive intelligence of his auditor, that it is the vassal, 
the courtezan of the public, etc.,” he forgets that 
the sculptor and the painter, who are debarred from 
the resources of preparation, and are only capable 
of rendering some particular instant of the action, 
are, in fact, even more dependent than the writer 
upon the lively imaginations of their admirers, and 
must look for the completion of their work to 
intelligences which will appreciate it only in pro- 
portion to their own superiority.” 

Hieroglyphs which represented general ideas 
were easily understood, and called for little mental 
effort. These signs spoke of life and death, gods 
and kings; they hada public character. A popular 
language, neither literary in its intentions nor 
plastic in its aims, this process, addressed to all 
and belonging to all, had nothing in common with 
a superior and luxurious product, an art destined 
for a chosen few. 3 

And yet there was artistic effort in the essays 
of him who sought to represent a familiar form. 

This was already draughtsmanship, and when 
colour was added, it became painting. 

This primitive drawing and painting expressed 
the opinion its practitioners had formed of Nature, 
and therefore reflected contemporary vision. 


* Sculpture makes very little appeal to the crowd. It is too haughty, too 
concise, not sufficiently loquacious ; it cannot tell a story like painting. 


68 


7 PERCEPTION OF RELIEF 

Scholars have inquired into the nature of colour- 
vision in pre-historic periods and throughout the 
successive epochs of antiquity. ? 

There seems to have been no similar inquiry 
into perception of form.* But if we consider the 
first efforts of every art and of every artist, we 
may conclude that objects appeared in flat outline 
without relief to a primitive artist, just as they do 
to any beginner. 

All primitive sculpture is Hat; all primitive 
painting is concerned with silhouette and not with 
relief. The sense of relief develops gradually. 
Modelling is always very incomplete at first. In 
sculpture it begins with Square reliefs, almost 
entirely neglectful of modelling within the contours, 
though not unconscious of it. Primitive painting, 
which is always in high tones, and sees half-tones 
too light, is conscious of intermediate modellings, 
but indicates them very timidly. 

Every art, as it develops, has to overcome the 
difficulties of modelling, just as all literature has to 
cope with those of transitions. This constitutes 
the awkward age of an art and a talent in process 
of formation. 

In his volume of reminiscences, L’Afelicy 
@'Ingres, Amaury-Duval records a lesson of 


Ingres’ :— 
emieiseather fat. ... . It lacks half-tones. 
. + . Lonce painted like this. . . . Now I round 


my things. . . . Come, take care... . No one 


* The keenness and vivacity of vision in primitive races is indisputable. 
Certain pre-historic outline drawings of animals render movements which we 
can no longer discern, but which instantaneous photography has revealed to 
us. It would seem that our vision is less acute than that of primitive man, 
but more subtle and delicate, 

69 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
fener 
will understand. . . . Yes, certainly, it wants 
more relief.’”* 

What Ingres remarked was very true and very 
general. Every artist passes through a “flat ” 
period; some never get beyond it. Many artists— 
the best, perhaps—see modelling and relief more 
correctly as they grow older. I have known old 
painters and sculptors who exaggerated it. I recall 
the quip addressed by a sculptor to one of his 
colleagues in this connection :— 

“Take care, my dear fellow, you are giving us 
the round with a vengeance—a round and a 
alt 1m 

We may conclude that the vision of schools, like 
that of individuals, undergoes an evolution from 
flatness to relief, without any transformation of 
human vision in general. Inattentive, and perhaps 
elementary in the indifferent, it is developed by 
exercise among those who work. 

But has colour vision gone through the same 
processes ? | 

It is obvious that the simple, primitive man 
whose eye is uneducated, sees the local monochrome 
tone, and does not distinguish the gradations of the 
modelling. | 

A Levantine who had had his portrait painted, 
complained that the red of his fez looked dirty on 
one side. It was in vain that the painter explained 
the meaning of light and shade, and pointed out 
that he had given the relief and the illumination of 
the fez. The imperturbable Levantine seized his 


* We may compare various portraits by Ingres in the Louvre, the ‘‘ flat ye 
ones, Mons. and Madame Rivitre, and the “ rounded ” ones, Dertin 
and Chérubine. 

7O 


MAGNUS’ THEORY OF COLOUR-SENSE 
a al ia ee a 
head-gear, twirled it round under the nose of his 
portrait-painter, and, as it turned, kept on repeating, 
‘Red, red, red, ad everywhere. jee Keapainier 
gave in, and laid upon the canvas a fine red tone, 
flat and unrelieved. The sitter applauded him, 
highly delighted ; he had got the fez he wanted.* 

The eye undoubtedly requires an education to 
enable it to distinguish and appreciate relief, 
modelling andtones. But is our vision, even when 
thus trained, complete in its appreciation of the 
scale of shades? Was it always, and will it be 
always in the same state of perception as at 
present ? 

A German scholar, Hugo Magnus, who has 
studied the question, is of opinion that there has 
been a gradual evolution of the colour-sense.+ 
According to him, man has not always perceived 
the colours which we perceive, and will not always 
perceive only these. 

His system is based upon Darwin’s theory. He 
sees that all living organisms tend to develop in 
the course of centuries, and are transformed by the 
action of the forces of Nature. He asks whether it 
would not be possible to follow the phases of this 
progressive development by means of certain traces 
it has left in language during the historical period 
and even in classical antiquity. 

He examines the Bible, the Homeric poems, the 
hymns of the Rig-Véda, the Zend-Avesta, and he 
claims to show from these that the men contem- 
porary with their writers did not see in Nature all 
the colours which we distinguish, or in any case, 


* L. Arréat, Psychologie du Peintre, p. 80. 
+ Hugo Magnus, Die geschichtliche Entwickelung des Farbensinnes, 1877. 


71 


4 


. o 
THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


that they have made no mention of them, which 
would lead us to suppose that they were more 
susceptible to certain shades and less susceptible to 
others. 

Magnus believes that in the beginning, human 
sight, more sensitive to quantity than to quality, 
perceived light with more intensity than delicacy. 
“The retina was then throughout in a state 
analogous to that of its peripheral zone at the 
present day; in these regions, the retina is as yet 
insensible to colour; every colour loses its true 
characteristics, and appears a Brey more or less 
light.” 

Sensibility to colours, he thinks, was developed 
in accordance with the order of the solar spectrum. 
The more vivid colours, yellow and red, were per- 
ceived before the weaker blue and green. He points 
out that the Vedas, the Zend-Avesta, and the Bible 
never speak of the blue sky, and that the Homeric 
poets, who mention red and yellow, say nothing of 
the green of the trees or the blue of the sky. He 
lays stress on ancient descriptions of the rainbow. 
In the Iliad, the rainbow is described as red, or 
purple. 

Finally, he shows language enriching itself by 
‘degrees as the faculty for discerning obscure shades 
develops. He quotes this phrases of Goethe’s in 
passing :— 

“If the Pythagoreans never mention blue, 
we must once more remind ourselves that blue 
has so much affinity with dark and obscure tints 
that they may long have been confused.” 

Magnus thinks that our descendants will perhaps 
some day distinguish “a particular colour at that 


72 


a 
DINET ON MAGNUS’ THEORY 

nes 
very point where, for us, the chromatic character of 
the solar spectrum ceases altogether. It would 
seem that more especially with regard to violet, our 
sensibilities are still in process of elaboration. . . 
Not infrequently, one hears someone describe a 
shade as violet, which appears blue to others.” 

He mentions experiments made on children of 
tender years, who will notice vivid, luminous 
colours, such as red, and are indifferent to colours 
of less intensity. 

The theory interested me. I spoke of it to Dinet, 
who had had opportunities, very pertinent to this 
inquiry, of observing the nomads of the Sahara, 
men whose condition differs but little from that 
of the heroes of Homer and of the Zend-A vesta. 

Dinet answered at once in a tone of absolute 
conviction. Hethinks the German theory valueless 
and quite without authority. 

“Your scholar,” said he, ‘‘bases his theory on 
words found in Homer and in the Hindoo poets. 
But what is there to prove that these words had 
just the meaning he sees in them? Who, again, 
can say that there may not have been other words 
which Homer and the Hindoo poets never used ? 
The most distinguished Arabic scholars fall into 
gross errors when they translate Arab words 
without the help of native Arabs, capable of ex- 
plaining the exact shades of the language. They 
persist in giving to the words of this language, at 
once vague and rich, indefinite and full of colour, 
the most poetical and imaginative of all tongues, 
meanings as precise as those of our modern 
European languages with their civilised, subtle, and 
practical phraseology.” 


59 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


And Dinet went on to give me some very curious 
examples of the liberty and fancy of these Oriental 
languages, which, by their common origin, must 
naturally have great affinities with the Greek and 
Hindoo tongues. 

An Arab, when he sees a piece of white linen, 
says very properly, “This linen is green.” As 
green, the colour of the leaves, is to him the symbol 
of freshness, and of the moisture which produces 
verdure, “This linen is green” means ‘“‘ This linen 
has just been washed, it is still wet.” A scholar ot 
little experience would declare that an Arab cannot 
distinguish white from green. 

Dinet gave me other instances— 

“Tf you ask some European official, civil or 
military, what is the colour of the rocks in some 
region of Africa, you will generally be told, ‘ They 
are gray.’ And yet the tints of the rocks in the 
Sahara are very pronounced. If you question an 
Arab, on the other hand, he will reply, ‘They are 
blue, red, yellow, or green;’ he will exaggerate, 
rather than minimise the colouring. 

‘‘The horse the Arab prizes most is the one he 
calls ‘a blue horse, the colour of the pebbles 
in the river.’ We should call it gray, but the 
Arab sees the chromatic quality in the gray tone. 
Does not this prove that the eye of the Arab 
nomad is more sensitive to colour than that of 
civilised man? Of course, 1 am not speaking of 
professional artists, whose calling trains them in 
the appreciation of colour.” 

As I was anxious to collect all the available 
evidence bearing on the problem, and then leave it 
to the reader to draw his own conclusions, I went 


74 


COLOUR-SENSE —AMONG SAVAGES 


to ask the opinion of Mons. Frédéric Christol, a 
painter who lived for some time as an evangelical 
missionary in South Africa.* He answered my 
inquiries by opening his recently published volume, 
L’ Art dans l Afrique australe,t and showing me this 
passage :— 


“Their knowledge of colours is very elementary ; they have 
no perception of blue, which they confound with gray ; it is 
the same with violet, orange, and other intermediate tones 
which are undistinguishable to their Daltonian vision. 
Nevertheless, they recognise green, which does not exist for 
other natives, notably those of the Gaboon.” 


I may add that Mons. Christol had never heard of 
Magnus’ theories before. His statements were, 
therefore, the result of facts he had observed, and 
not of researches made to confirm a theory. 

Mons. Cartailhac also tells us that there 1s 
neither blue nor greenin the rock-paintings of 
Australian tribes.t Nevertheless, in treating of 
the evolution of colour-sense, there seems to be a 
general disposition to attribute to primitive peoples 
a certain impotence of language in the expression 
of perfectly definite sensations. Messrs. H. Cros 
and Ch. Henry say §:— 


“Tt is very certain that in remotest antiquity, men did not 
apply the analytical powers of which we are capable to the 
evidences of their senses; this inferiority is apparent in the 
early stages ofall races. Language necessarily reproduced the 


* In 1884, Mons. Christol discovered and copied a rock-painting near 
Hermon, in Basutoland, a battle-scene representing giant negroes, little brown 
men, and cattle. His copy, which he presented to the Geographical Society, 
has become a standard document for primitive art. 

+ Published by Berger-Levrault, 1911. 

t Cartailhac, La Caverne a’ Altamira. 

§ L’Encaustique et les autres procédés de peinture ches les anciens, 1884. 


79 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


vagueness of sensation that obtained ; but this was the result 
of intellectual, and not of physiological inferiority.” * 


Perhaps, some day, archzologists will be able to 
throw more light upon primitive man. But in any 
case, even if the evolution of vision were proved, 
painters should surely paint what we see to-day, 
without any attempt to anticipate the vision of the 
future. 


Scientific Colour-Vision. 


Leonardo da Vinci wrote the first treatise on 
painting which dealt with light and colour both 
scientifically and artistically. In the treatises that 
preceded his, such as the precise and practical 
essay of Cennino Cennini, there is no trace of any 
preoccupation with matters outside simple crafts- 
manship. The relation of colours to each other, 
the laws that appear to govern them, the luminous 
phenomena of Nature, and the processes by which 
these may be rendered in painting, were all 
considered for the first time by Leonardo da Vinci, 
very tentatively, it is true, but with a series of 
observations which the art and science of the 
nineteenth century have fully confirmed. 

Theories in themselves have been of very little 
use to painters. The Venetians and the Flemings 
were empirical masters of colour whom Leonardo 
never equalled, in spite of his divination and his 
science. It is impossible to say that any fixed 
laws as to the relation of colours will ever save 


* In conclusion, I may note the observation of a friend who considers 
Magnus’ theory fantastic and paradoxical. ‘A Frenchman recently returned 
from Germany declares that he heard a colleague of Magnus’ maintain that 
the French cannot distinguish ye//ow from whzte. He supported his con- 
tention by their use of the term whzte wine for an obviously yellow liquid. 
Such, said my friend, are the methods of German professors.” 


70 


Ce ee a 


SCIENCE IN RELATION TO COLOUR 


young artists from individual groping and ex- 
periment. Nor must it be believed, as has too 
often been said, that drawing must be acquired, 
but that colour is a natural gift; there have been 
painters who have become colourists by study.* If 
we examine the great schools of colourists, we 
shall recognise that all these painters cannot have 
been colourists by nature. But they became so 
under the influence of their masters and comrades. 
Their surroundings sustained and directed them, 
and inclined them towards colour just as, in a 
school of draughtsmen, interest in and knowledge 
of drawing become general. 

Harmony is acquired rather by practice than by 
theory. In Leonardo da Vinci’s treatise we find 
the principles of complementary colours set forth 
scientifically several centuries before Chevreul,} 
and these principles no more made the master a 
colourist than they now make colourists of those 
who attempt to evolve artistic formulas from the 
‘law of complementary colours.’ Such rules may 
facilitate research and study; but in practice it 
would be misleading to ascribe to them the certainty 
of natural laws. Theoretical laws, they are nearly 
always disturbed and upset by eventualities more 
or less unforeseen. 

It is, however, necessary, I think, to set forth 
the opinions of scientists, because they have had a 
great influence upon modern technique. 


* Delacroix’ first pictures revealed a painter’s temperament, but fine colour 
only came gradually into his work, from the AZassacre of Chios onwards. 

+ “Between equal colours, the most excellent will be that which one sees 
next to the colour which is a contrast to it, as red by the side of a pale tone, 
black with white, golden yellow with blue, green with red; every colour 
seems stronger beside its opposite than beside another akin to it” (Leonardo 
da Vinci, Zreatise on Painting). 

77 


- 
THE TECHNIQUE. OF. PAINTING 
Sane ae ee 

Science recognises three simple colours: yellow, 
red, and blue. 

These parent colours, combined two by two, 
form three others, known as the binary colours: 
orange, produced by the mixture of yellow and red: 
violet, by that of blue and red; and green, by that 
of blue and yellow. 

We thus get the following colours: violet, blue, 
green, yellow, orange, red. 

By an ingenious device these colours have been 
arranged at equal distances round a circumference, 
and have been gradually shaded off to blend 
insensibly one into another. 

But here we are brought up roughly against 
certain facts. 

In the first place, we find in practice that the 
parent colours do not, with material colours, 
produce the theoretical binaries. We get dark, dull 
greens, oranges and violets, that clash with the 
parent colours. To make them harmonise, we 
should be obliged to dim these maternal colours, to 
transform them, and consequently to lose them 
partly. 

As to the circular chromatic scale, we must first 
note that the two extremities of the prism contain 
colours which, though invisible to our eyes © 
demonstrate their existence by their chemical or 
caloric action—caloric beyond red, where the ther- 
mometer can still be influenced, and chemical 
beyond violet, where chemical influence is stil] 
active. 

But this is not all. At the extremities of the 


* A shade described as lavender-gray has already been recognised beyond 
violet, and acrimson beyond red. This is noted in relation to Magnus’ theory. 


78 


COMPLEMENTARY COLOURS 


prism it is impossible to blend violet insensibly into 
red; the fusion would not produce crimson. 

This is vexatious, for the chromatic circle and its 
arrangement gave an opportunity for demonstrating 
the famous ‘heory of complementary colours in a 
very striking manner. 

Here it is, as expounded as early as 1812 by 
Ch. Bourgeois, in a paper read before the Académie 
des Sciences :— 


“As white light contains the three elementary, generative 
colours, yellow, red, and blue, each of these colours serves as 
complement to the two others to form the equivalent of white 
light. The term complementary is accordingly applied to 
each of the three primary colours in relation to the binary 
colour produced by the other two. 

“Thus blue is complementary to orange, because orange, 
which is composed of yellow and red, contains the elements 
necessary to combine with blue for the reconstitution of white 
light. 

“‘ For the same reason, yellow is complementary to violet, and 
red to green, And in like manner, each of the. mixed colours, 
orange, green and violet, produced by the blending of two 
primary colours, is complementary to the primary colour 
not used in the mixture; thus orange is the complementary 
colour of blue, because blue is excluded from the mixture 
which produces orange.” 


In 1825 Chevreul began his researches into 
colour-contrasts, and described the enhancement 
of complementary colours one by another as “the 
law of the simultaneous contrast of colours.” Now 
this simultaneous enhancement of complementary 
colours in juxtaposition formulated by science is 
constantly violated by Nature. 

Dinet made the following remarks to me in this 
connection :— 


“ Chevreul’s complementary laws are hardly ever realised in 


79 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
s—eiestniatannsnennnenyeaonaesinnesseisisssetenen i ae 


Nature. If they are true, and this we are not learned enough to 


discuss, it must be in another world, with ideal colours, for © 


here light, distance, proportion and matter from which it is 
impossible to isolate them, even with all the precautions of the 
laboratory, always prevent them from being exact. When red 
trousers are objected to as being too conspicuous in warfare, 
officers will tell you that they look black at a distance against 
verdure. Black! Now verdure ought really to make them 
more brilliant, since green is complementary to red. On the 
other hand, no one would think of painting a battleship red, 
because it has been noticed that the blue of the sea enhanced 
the brilliance of the red funnels of transatlantic liners; and 
yet blue is not complementary to red.” 


For the sake of completeness, let us, however, 
note the three contrasts classified by Chevreul; we 
may indicate them, although they can only be 
considered as theoretical laws. 

After laying down the ‘law of the simultaneous 
contrast of colours,” Chevreul describes the follow- 
ing phenomenon under the name of ‘successive 
contrast.” © 

If we look attentively at an object painted in 
black on a white ground, and then fix our eyes ona 
black ground, we shall see the black object re-appear 
here in white. Further, if the object so looked at 
were coloured, and we turned from it to look at a 
white screen, the original image would reappear 
here in its complementary colour; green, for 
instance, if the object had been red. 

Under the heading of “ mixed contrast,” Chevreul 
points out, again, that if one looks attentively at a 
coloured object, and then turns to look at another 
of a different colour, the complementary of the first 
colour will appear upon the second and will modify it. 

These facts have been very generally noticed. 
There are even historic examples of them. At the 

' 80 


% 


OPTICAL PHENOMENA 


moment of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew a 
party of gamblers suddenly saw their dice stained 
with blood. Perhaps these gamblers had green 
branches before them, or they may have been dicing 
on a green cloth. 

In Goethe’s Conversations, Eckermann relates how 
once in 1829, when he was walking in the garden 
with the philosopher on a fine April day, and they 
were looking at some yellow crocuses in full flower, 
they suddenly perceived spots of violet when their 
eyes rested on the soil. 

Delacroix once painted a yellow drapery without 
succeeding in giving it the emphasis he desired. 
He determined to go to the Louvre to see some 
similar draperies painted by Rubens, and he sent 
fora hackney cab. It was towards the year 1830, 
when Parisian cabs were painted canary yellow. 
In the street Delacroix saw the cab waiting for 
_ him in the sun, and noticed that the yellow of 
the cab produced violet in the shadow which was 
untouched by the sun. He paid the cabman, and 
went in again; he knew what he had wanted to 
find out. 

These phenomena should not be unknown to 
artists; they may occasionally be useful to them. 
Painters should also be acquainted with optical 
mixtures, or ‘‘ the law of resulting colours.” 

Two colours juxtaposed or superposed, will, 
according to the extent which each one occupies, 
cause a third colour to appear, the existence of which 
will be purely apparent. This colour, due to the 
optical mixture, is a resulting colour. Chevreul has 
told us that when a painter applies colour to a canvas 
he does not only tint all the surface touched by the 

P. 81 . G 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


brush with this colour, but also tints all the sur- 
rounding space with its complementary. 

To illustrate this, Delacroix’ Algerian Women is 
cited, in which a pink chemisette patterned with 
little green florets produces an indefinable tone 
impossible to reproduce by mixing colours on the 
palette. It is the “result” of the optical fusion 
of the little green sprigs with the pink tone of the 
chemisette. ts & 

Although Delacroix was a contemporary of 
Chevreul’s, he never knew him, nor had he any need 
to know him. As I have already remarked, the 
discoveries of scientists do good service in formu- 
lating these phenomena; but it must be admitted 
that the greatest artists dispensed with such know- 
ledge, and that the painters of to-day too often 
exaggerate its importance. 

In the history of processes, we have seen that 
certain painters who exploited these in too seryile a 
manner fell into excesses which made their achieve- 
ments curiosities rather than works of art. 

Dinet made the following observations to me in 
this connection :— 

“The unfortunate Chevreul has been made responsible for 
absurdities with which he has nothing todo. A painter, when 
he has got a red, imagines he is working scientifically in 
putting down a green beside it. He supposes this will give - 
him—1, more brilliance ; 2, more light ; 3, more harmony. 
Now: 

“1. Even according to Chevreul, if the two colours are 
in equal quantities, far from enhancing each other, they are 
mutually destructive; the brilliance of the one modifies the 
brilliance of the other, and the effect is nil. 

“2. Light has nothing to do with the complementary colours ; 


he who gives a red Venetian lantern an aureole of a nies 
green to make it more luminous, has never looked at a rea 


82 a 


¥ 


HARMONY IN COLOUR 
er esessrstettnssunsessersnesaesanin 
one. If he had he would have noticed that this aureole js 
purplish red; he destroys the luminous effect by the use of the 
complementary colour. a. a 

“3. Neither has harmony anything to do with complemen- 
tary colours. All colours, without exception, can be brought 
togetherin a harmonious manner. The harmony between any 
two tones arises from gradation, proportion, the introduction 
of other colours either in their mass or around them, a 
thousand indefinable causes which the instinct of the eye alone 
can combine. The Orientals are the most amazing masters of 
such combinations. They have had the good luck to have 
remained in happy ignorance of complementary colours. See 
how difficult it is for a European painter or decorator to har- 
monise our national colours, red, white and blue. Well, from 
Japan to Morocco, passing through Persia, you will find these 
three colours on every kind of china, and the effect is always 
charming. Painters and decorators! do not ask more from 
science than it can give you. Ask for solid and enduring tints 
and pigments, good varnishes, etc., but do not ask more. It 
will never make you see, if you do not see already, and if you 
do see, it will confuse your vision by its necessarily inexact 
theories.” * 


* The following communication has been made to me by a friend, in 
relation to the practical bearings of science :— 

“ IT was travelling in the Sahara with a scholar who was a professor at the 
Ecole Polytechnique, and he was much annoyed to see how unscientifically the 
thermometers were fixed in the military stations. He himself, anxious te 
establish the truth as to the temperature of these regions, had brought with 
him a so-called sling-thermometer, the only truly scientific instrument of the 
kind, because it gives the temperature of the air exactly, independently of 
reflections from the ground or the walls, of the burning scirocco, and the cold 
north wind, of damp, etc. . .. Every day at noon, my friend twirled this 
sling-thermometer fastened to a string, for a quarter of an hour, and 
carefully noted the degrees which were registered in a truly scientific manner. 
The journey lasted a month. It was spring time, and the temperature was 
very variable. Some days, shivering in the icy north wind, we could scarcely 
believe we were in the Sahara; on others we were oppressed by a terrible 
heat which parched our throats and burnt ourskin. What was our stupefaction 
when we went through all the temperatures so carefully taken at noon. 
Every day the temperature had risen regularly to 28° C. (94° F.). The 
sensations of our bodies had been due, not to the actual atmosphere, but 
to secondary causes. And I came to the conclusion that the more scientific a 
thermometer is, the less capable is it of giving any information as to the 
impressions of heat or cold one receives in passing through a country.” 


‘+ 


83 o2 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


7 
* 


PROCESSES 


Ever since artists have imitated reality by 
means of coloured powders fixed by agglutinants on 
surfaces such as walls, panels or canvases, they 
have had to contend with contradictory difficulties. 

They have to produce opacity and transparence, 
light and dark, an appearance of dryness and an 
appearance of moisture. They therefore seek for 
processes capable of utilising the reflecting power 
of each molecule of dry colour, or of annulling it 
by means of an agglutinant. 

Colour in powder retains its reflecting power only 
by remaining intact ; that is to say, free from any 
agelutinant. But in this state it cannot be fixed on 
the surface destined to receive it, and it gives no 
illusion of depth in the shadows. If, on the other 
hand, the agglutinant provides the powder with the 
necessary transparence in the shadows, and fixes it 
firmly on the surface, it diminishes its brilliance ; 
the colour, more difficult to handle, forms, with the 
ageglutinant, a brittle stratum which becomes a 
medium of deterioration in the picture. 

Painting struggles with these difficulties, ay 
has not yet overcome them altogether. 

Each of the processes employed has its hae 
tages and disadvantages, according to the agglu- 
tinants used, their proportions, their action upon 
the coloured powders, and their effects on opacity 
and transparence, lights and darks. 

They may be classified as— 

1. Opaque painting: pastel, distemper, gouache 
or body-colour, wax-painting. 


834 


PASTEL 


* 

2. Transparent painting: water-colour, glazes, 
and varnish. 

3. Mixed painting, combining the two qualities, 
according to the quantity of the agglutinant and 
the thickness of the stratum: fresco, tempera, or 
painting with egg, oil-painting. 


é 


» be OPAQUE PAINTING 
Pastel. 

This process—one of the most recently invented 
—is the most simple; the powder is almost pure. 
The very slight admixture of agglutinant, pipe-clay 
or gum dissolved in water, binds the powder into a 
crayon easy to handle. 

Pastel is soft, medium, or hard, according to 
the quantity of agglutinant in the paste. But in 
proportion as the agglutinant is increased, the 
brilliance of the pastel diminishes. The most 
brilliant pastel will be the most tender. 

A support capable of retaining the paste must be 
chosen for pastel. Any very smooth surface is 
. bad ; but a very granulated surface should also be 
syoided ; : it tempts the artist to load the ground, 
and the pastel becomes more fr agile 1 in consequence. 

As a fact, the execution most in favour in the 
eighteenth century, the truly classic formula, was 
the most rational. The pastel was rubbed thinly 
and not loaded. ; 

Nowadays it is loaded, and made heavy by a 
system of hatching which, though not without 
charm, is imprudent and shows a lack of foresight. 
At a distance, the pastel has the plastery appearance 
of an oil- ass on a very absorbent canvas, It 

85 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


is true that the material is thus left more intact 
than when the pastel is rubbed on. It offers 
particles of powder to the light without crushing 
them, and as each molecule reflects its neighbour, 
the pastel thus loaded presents all the freshness 
and brightness proper to it. But this freshness is 
won at the expense of durability. The artist is 
always confronted by the same old difficulties. 

The best kind of ground for pastel seems to be 
a rather coarse brown paper. Canvases primed 
with size, with sawdust, with pumice-stone and 
with felt arealso used.* All these preparations are 
equally good. The pastellist will prefer one or the 
other according to his individual handling. But it 
is very necessary to inquire into the nature of the 
agelutinant used in preparing the priming, Animal 
glue badly prepared becomes a destructive agent 
in pastel, by the introduction of germs of mildew. 
Pure gelatine is better, as also is caseine, if no 
glycerine or honey be added in order to make it 
supple. The presence of these ingredients will 
soon be betrayed by mildew. 

Pastels require infinite care and precaution on 
account of their fragility. 

The adhesive power of the powder is so slight 
that even a vibration will suffice to detach the 
molecules. It is therefore prudent to attenuate 
these vibrations as far as possible. As artists 
usually fit their paper or canvas on a stretcher, 
they get a veritable tambourine, sensitive to the 
slightest shock, and vibrating even to the noises of 
the adjoining streets. 


* Jules Grin executes pastels on canvases primed with gesso, or gn 
absorbent canvas. ‘ 
80 : é 


BAS rel: 


2. Free handling : LA Tour, by HIMSELF. (Dijon, Museum.) 


PROTECTION OF PASTELS 


To protect pastels from blows from behind, it is 
customary to put a piece of cardboard at the back 
of the stretcher. But prior to this, two further 
precautions should be taken against vibrations. The 
first consists in inserting a small quantity of cotton- 
wool between the stretcher and the canvas. It is 
also well to fix on the stretcher, together with the 
first canvas, a second canvas with an oil priming 
turned towards the stretcher ; this will react against 
noise and shocks, by vibrations contrary to those 
of the first canvas, which they will tend to neutralise. 
Finally, it will do the pastel the service of protect- 
ing it against damp, one of its worst enemies, of 
which I shall have more to say presently. 

The following process is also simple and practical. 
Take a rather stout sheet of cardboard, and fix the 
pastel paper upon it by means of a little gum at 
its edges, or even with drawing-pins, which are 
better than gum. The pastel will not then form a 
tambourine, and it will be protected against shocks 
by the cardboard. The vibrations may be further 
diminished by slipping felt or cotton-wool against 
the joints of the frame. 

The most varied methods obtain in the execu- 
tion of pastel; all are of interest and all give a 
special result of some kind. Some artists only touch 
with the crayon, and leave the line intact; others 
rub the powder with the finger to spread it; some 
take up the powder with a stump and tint the 
paper with it.* Some prepare a kind of prelimi- 
nary sketch, which they fix, so that they may have a 
solid basis to work on; they then rub on the upper 


* Girardot recommends the pith of elder-stems cut into the form of a stump, 
as softer and yet firmer than an ordinary stump. 


87 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


layer without fixing it, which enables them to keep 
the delicate bloom of the pastel. Others work 
without any under-painting, directly on the ground, 
and do not fix the pastel. Maxence prepares a 
very elaborate under-painting, in water-colour, on 
special paper. Before applying the pastel, he rubs 
it over with burnt bone powder. This gives the 
paper, which the water-colour had made smooth, 
a certain ‘“‘tooth.” Finally, he works with hard 
pastels. 

Attempts have been made to fix pastel. But 
the same conflicting difficulties present them- 
selves here again. To slip an agglutinant between 
the molecules of colour after the completion of the 
work destroys the qualities of the powder. The 
pastel becomes thick and heavy, and is, in fact, 
transformed into distemper. It even looks like a 
very loaded water-colour, if the fixative is used 
freely. 

Latour, it is said, discovered a perfect fixative; 
it is supposed to have been a mixture of isinglass 
and spirits of wine sprayed upon the pastel. The 
question was much discussed in the eighteenth 
century, and gave rise to a variety of receipts, but 
even now there is no fixative which does not affect 
the colours, either in their brilliance or their 
stability. 

As shellac is one of the ingredients of the fixative 
used for charcoal drawings, this, with a basis of 
alcohol, gives too much transparence to the chalk 
whites of pastel, and darkens the coloured tones. 

The fixatives in general use, which have a basis 
of size or gelatine, all have the disadvantage of 
transforming the pastel into a kind of painting with 

88 


FIXING PASTELS 


size, similar to that in use for stage scenery. Their 
use entails a further danger. As gelatine and size 
turn to a jelly when cold, they are kept liquid in the 
trade by the addition of acetic acid, or, in other 
words, vinegar. But vinegar acts injuriously upon 
pigments. The whites evaporate, the high tones 
darken, and the pastel loses its brilliance. Finally, 
if the solution is not very fresh, it ferments, and 
spots of mildew eat through the pastel to the paper. 

It is therefore wise for the artist to prepare his 
own fixative. The proportions can-then be regu- 
lated at will, but the pastellist must always bear in 
mind that the solidity of his work will be in inverse 
proportion to its freshness; he must therefore 
judge for himself how far he is prepared to sacrifice 
brilliance to durability. 

After melting the gelatine over the fire in water, 
and placing it in a bain-marie to keep it lukewarm 
and prevent it from jellying while it is being used, 
the preparation should be tried on one half of a sheet 
of paper rubbed over with pastel, leaving the other 
half unfixed. The two halves should then be com- 
pared. When the right quantity has been found— 
the quantity which gives a satisfactory result as 
regards freshness and solidity —the preparation 
should be applied directly to the pastel for which 
it is required. 

Girardot tells me that ‘‘ pastel seems to fix itself 
automatically in course of time, under the influences 
of the moisture in the atmosphere, which act at 
once on the size in the paper and the gum in the 
pastel. The older a pastel is, the more solid it is.” 
He also recommends as a fixative the whey of 
white cheese spread on the back of a pastel on 

89 


- 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


paper, and on the surface, by spraying, upon 
pastels on canvas. 

The fragility of pastel imposes cares on the 
scrupulous artist, which extend even to the 
framing. " 

The glazing of a pastel picture is as important 
as the varnishing of an oil picture. ‘The pastel is 
therefore not actually finished until its author has 
ensured it a proper frame. It must be separated 
from the glass by means of little slips of wood placed 
along the sides or on the surface, upon the edges 
of the pastel. These slips are coloured a dull black. 
The glass is then bordered with black leather paper. 
These precautions minimise the risks of injury by 
damp and the resulting mildew.* 


Distemper. 

The coloured powder, which is almost pure in 
pastel, has the appearance of distemper as soon as 
the pastel is fixed. The next process after pastel 


* Mons. Meyer-Sée, who devotes himself more especially to criticism of the 
English masters of the eighteenth century, and who organised the Exhibition 
of English Pastels at the Brunner Gallery in the spring of last year (1911), 
has communicated to me the curious information he has gleaned in the course 
of his researches relating to the English pastellists, and in particular, to 
Russell. 

To protect his pastels from damp, Russell used to gum them to sheets of 
copper or to canvases coated on the back with gelatine. He prepared his 
crayons himself. Mons. Sée showed me a note-book containing Russell's 
receipts. The English pastellist substituted spirits of turpentine for the gum 
and water generally used to bind the powder. When he wanted the sticks to 
be fairly hard, he added a little spirits of wine. Russell's pastels owe 
to the resin contained in these unrectified essential oils a very interesting 
vivacity and transparence, which, however, deprive them of the character- 
istic flatness of tint. With the loyalty of a sincere critic, Mons. i also 
admits that cracks have appeared in certain works of Russell’s, and that 
the material does not always seem to be very solidly fixed. These cracks are 
undoubtedly due to the resins in the essential oils, which igi also cause 
the colours to become dull and yellow. 

The pastellists Gardner and Chinnery prepared their under-painting with 
water or with body-colour. In Gardner’s pastels the under-painting is blue ; 
in Chinnery’s, the white body-colour is tinted with light rubbings in the ~ 
carnations, These works are not, strictly speaking, true pastels, 


go 


aes? 


DISTEMPER 


is therefore distemper, in which the powder is fixed 
to the surface by size. 

The colour is first ground with water, and then 
mixed at the moment of painting with size, which 
is kept in a liquid state in a bain-marie. The 
size has to be mixed with the colour at the 
last moment, because the proportions have to be 
different according to the nature of the powder 
used. Itis important for the novice in this process 
to paint in strong tones. The tones, when wet, 
have not the same values as when dry; they get 
lighter as they dry, and if the painter is not careful 
to be strong enough, the result is flat and pallid. 

This process, which seems to have been one of 
the most ancient in the art of painting, and which 
was the most widely used until the advent of oil 
painting, is now only used by the scene-painter. 
If the proportion of size is correct, the colour will 
resist rubbing, but it is always soluble by water. 
Its flat tones give it a very agreeable delicacy. 

As the handling of distemper is a good deal com- 
plicated by the changing values of the tones, which, 
as I have said, differ when first applied and when 
dry, dealers have brought out improved colours 
for distemper painting, which are almost the 
same in tone, wet or dry. This result is got by 
various ingredients: gum arabic, cherry gum, honey, 
fig juice, oil capable of mixing with water, caseine. 
The result in every case iS an increase of the 
agelutinant, and consequently, a modification of 
the process at the expense of its freshness. 
The pastel-like quality disappears; the painting 
assumes the appearance of oil colour which has 
sunk into the canvas. It has retained a semblance 


gi 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


only of flatness, without its charm; and as the 
next step is to cover it with a thick varnish to get 
‘back its brilliance, as well as to protect it from damp, 
the work is still further removed from flat painting, 
and approximates still more closely to oil-painting, 
without obtaining its resisting qualities. All these 
improvements, in short, produce only bastard results. 

True distemper, with its difficulties, and on the 
other hand, its characteristic qualities, is infinitely 
preferable. 

It is of great service on occasions when it is 
necessary to work quickly; as in studies of land- 
scape, for instance. It dries rapidly. Landscape- 
painters also have recourse to pastel, which allows 
of the same swiftness of notation. Moreover, the 
two processes are now often used together; as the 
fixative gives pastel the appearance of distemper, 
passages of pure distemper are easily combined 
with passages of pastel, and a certain unity of 
aspect is preserved. 

Vibert, in his volume on the Science of Painting ,* 
speaks of distemper under-painting for oil pictures, 
and condemns the practice; it is said to have been 
derived from a studio tradition, according to which 
Veronese blocked in his pictures in distemper. 
Vibert says that these under-paintings ought 
to be transparent and impenetrable, like water- 
colours, and not chalky and absorbent like dis- 
temper. He considers that the gelatine in the 
latter makes it liable to scale when used for 
primings and under- -paintings. : 

In short, distemper is now very little used, in 
spite of its great historic past. 

* Vibert, La Sezence de la Peinture, 1891. 


92 


GOUACHE AND WAX-PAINTING 


Gouache or Body Colour. 

The difference between distemper and gouache 
is very slight, the chief distinction being that in the 
latter gum arabic is used as the agglutinant, instead 
of size. The tone does not become so high as in 
distemper; its appearance when laid on wet differs 
less from that which it will have when dry. The 
tones, which are naturally very light, have a slightly 
chalky effect. Gouache, which is no longer a 
popular medium, had a great career in the 
eighteenth century. Its use, however, may be 
traced much further back than this, to the illu- 
minators of medizval missals, to the Persians 
and to the Egyptians ; but various gums were pro- 
bably mixed with it by the early artists. 


Wax Painting. 

This process was only used for mural painting, 
and it was in this medium that Flandrin painted 
his decorations in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Some 
years ago the sudden popularity of flat painting 
revived the taste for the wax process. 

The simplest method of painting with wax is to 
take oil colours and squeeze them on blotting-paper, 
which absorbs the oil. When the paint has dried 
into a stiff mass, wax, melted in rectified spirits 
of turpentine (one-quarter or one-third) or in elem1 
gluten, is added.* The best wax is obtained by 
melting sheets of virgin wax in a baim-marie with 
rectified spirits of turpentine. 

When cold, this mixture should be a stiff jelly. 
It is kept in a closed vessel; if it gets too hard, it 


* Elemi gluten is a mixture of wax, spirits of turpentine, and a soft, 
opaque resin called elemi. 


93 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
Sn ne nano 
must be warmed, and more spirit must be added 
to it to make up for the evaporation. The propor- 
tion of wax in each colour must be the same, 
otherwise the flatness will not be equal. 

This method cannot claim to be pure wax-paint- 
ing. For this, the colours must be ground with 
elemi gluten. Spirits of turpentine or rectified 
oil of spike may be added, if the mixture is too 
thick. | 

Although wax and spirit are used in this process, it 
is not what is called encaustic, the process of which 
is very different, and the result less flat in tone. _ 


$ 


TRANSPARENT PAINTING 
Water-Colour. 

For water-colour painting, the coloured powder 
is ground in water with gum arabic in varying 
quantities; there must always be sufficient to ensure 
that the colour is of the same tone wet or dry. 

The first duty and the essential quality of a 
water-colour picture is fluidity. Here the paper 
contributes to the effect, showing through the 
transparent colour, especially in the light tones. 
The paper is therefore not merely a surface, but a’ 
collaborator. Pure linen paper should be used. 
The best is sold by English firms; but unfortu- 
nately, it is sent to Paris by water, and the long. 
sojourn in the hold of a ship makes it damp.* 


Now, when paper has been exposed to damp 
after its manufacture, the size ferments, decom- 


P . F . s 
* Vibert, Za Science de la Peiniure, 


94 


WATER-COLOUR PAINTING 
ernest 
poses, and appears as mildew. Paper must 
therefore be carefully chosen, tested if necessary 
before purchase, and kept een bought in a dry 
place. 

It is very important that the size should not 
have been applied to the surface of the paper, after 
its fabrication; when this has happened, it may 
disappear as the artist works, and expose the 
spongy pulp, which will come out in spots. The 
size should be mixed in with the pulp. On the 
other hand, the paper should not be too imper- 
vious, for, in that case, the brush will not “bite,” 
and re-touches and over-paintings will not hold. 

We will inquire later into the durability of 
colours. But first we will go into the question 
of the ingredients often added by manufacturers to 
facilitate execution. | 

For instance, attempts have been made to render 
the colours mellower by adding honey or glycerine, 
and even sugar. Unfortunately, water-colours 
painted with colours thus prepared stick together 
in portfolios; they invite damp and disaster, and 
even attract flies and their ravages. 

To keep the colour moist longer and retard 
desiccation, the slime of snails and the juice of the 
fig tree have been used; a little glycerine, or a 
solution of gum tragacanth or chloride of calcium 
may be mixed with the water. But water-colours 
that dry slowly easily pick up moisture again, 
and they begin to dissolve when exposed to a 
damp atmosphere. 

It is better to avoid these so-called improve- 
ments, and to grapple courageously with the 
difficulties, which are to be found in every process. 


95 


% 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


Glazes or Varnishes. 


In studios, a confusion is often made between 
a glaze, a liquid impasto, and a very thin 
rubbing. 

A glaze is a colour, either pure or mixed, but non- 
opaque and with no admixture of white, which is laid 
on transparently over a thick impasto, or at any 
rate over a ground already covered. 

In our examination of processes we have seen 
that oil painting was, by reason of its transparence, 
only used at first as a glaze for works painted in 
tempera, with egg. ‘‘A glaze,” wrote Mérimée, 
“is not perfectly executed unless it produces the 
effect of a coloured varnish on the picture it covers,’””* 
and he insists upon the perfect grinding of colours 
as an indispensable condition of transparence. He 
adds: ‘ Under these conditions, even opaque 
colours such as vermilion, oxides of iron, and 
Naples yellow can be used as glazes, and they 
then produce tints it would be impossible to obtain 
otherwise.” 

If a glaze be laid on as soon as the colour beneath 
is dry enough not to be disturbed by the brush, this 
glaze will become incorporated with the work 
beneath ; it will have a durability which is often 
lacking in glazes, and will be able to resist the 
process of cleaning, which sometimes removes the 
glazes together with the varnish. | 

The under-painting which is to be glazed should 
be as firm as possible. This will help the painter 
to guard against the over-softness which sometimes 
results from the use of glazes. He must bear in 


* Mérimée, De la Petnture al huile, 18308 


6) 


™~ 


GLAZES 
ES i _ 
mind the deterioration to which pigments are liable ; 
glazes in general tend to turn yellow. Their effect 
must be calculated with this modification always in 
view; the yellows should be minimised, and as 
little oil as possible should be put into the light 
parts, in which the yellowing of the oil will be most 
apparent. 

Mérimée believes that Titian’s pictures have 
assumed a bistre tone due to the yellowing of his 
glazes, and that Rubens’ pictures, on the other 
hand, which show no such signs of deterioration, 
were probably painted with glazes specially pre- 
pared with a view to the alteration of colours. 
Perhaps he goes rather too far when he recon- 
structs Rubens’ recipe. ‘It is possible,’’ he says, 
“that he composed the tones for his shadows with 
a mixture of ultramarine, lake, and Italian pink. 
The loss of colour in the Italian pink will have 
counterbalanced the yellowing of the oil.” 

When the glaze is to be applied to a very dry 
surface, this should be carefully cleaned, and Vibert 
advises that it should be rubbed over with varnish. 
This will give greater stability ; the transparent 
glaze will adhere better to the under-painting. 

The painter must not, be it understood, work 
exclusively with glazes. They must be looked 
upon as a special resource possible in oil-painting, 
and not as a process sufficient in itself. In oil- 
painting it will be found that glazes, which give an 
appearance of depth and mellowness, should not be 
used to represent opaque, non- WA ae objects in 
full light; they are useful to vary execution. 
Without glazes, which bring out its peculiar charm, 
oil-painting loses one of its most precious qualities, 


P. 97 H 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
ai 
At present glazes are very little used, and indeed, 
ever since the time of David, they have been 
generally despised in the studios. Many painters 
do not even know how to execute them; and as 
they are often confused with scumblings and 
rubbings, they are condemned as the device of 
poor, timid, and inexperienced painters. 

Now, on the contrary, they require the utmost 
dexterity ; they were freely used by the greatest 
and most skilful of painters, Titian, Rubens, and 
Rembrandt, and added greatly to the richness and 
charm of their pictures. 

To prove this, it will only be necessary to try 
to copy some of these pictures without using 
glazes; a general heaviness will be the result, 
a lack of all the luminous depth and delicacy of 
the original. : 

The only drawback to glazes, a drawback which 
has sufficed to discredit them, is their fragility. 
But some painters assure us that this is obviated 
by the use of petroleum mixed with a siccative. 
The following is Girardot’s recipe, which he says 
he has used with perfect success. In a bottle con- 
taining 125 grammes of Courtray, he puts a 
spoonful of rectified petroleum. He considers this 
mixture perfectly satisfactory. His picture in the 
Luxembourg (Le Cimetiére de Tétouan) was glazed 
with it in the mountain background. But the 
painter must be careful to use rectified petroleum. 
Dinet prefers oil varnishes, which he considers more 
durable. 

I may conclude with a remark made to me by 
Carolus Duran: ‘Glazing should be a resource, 


not a method.” 
98 


PRrAIOD OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE, 15th CENTURY 


2. The complete group : GIOVANNA TORNABUONI, by BoTTICELLI. 


(The Louvre.) 


4 


Ss 


FRESCO 


MIXED PAINTING 


Fresco. 


The Italian word fresco (fresh) signifies a 
method of painting in water-colouron fresh plaster,a 
kind of distemper painting without an agglutinant. 
The plaster absorbs the colour, and the painting 
accordingly lasts as long as the cement of the wall 
itself. 

As fresh plaster, which is composed of a mixture 
of slack lime and fine sand, hardens as it dries, 
and becomes as firm as stone, this kind of painting 
should be durable above all others, provided that 
the workmanship and position of the wall are 
favourable—that is to say, inaccessible to salt- 
petre—and that the colours used are not such as 
to deteriorate from contact with lime. But the 
durability of fresco, which is secure in a dry country, 
cannot be counted upon in our damp climate. 

In spite of its simplicity of appearance and 
‘method, this process is not a very easy one. In 
practice it calls for great confidence and great 
facility. The plaster, which dries very quickly, has 
to be laid on at the time of painting, and covered 
before it gets dry; and as it 1s no longer absorbent 
after it dries, it does not allow of re-touching. Itis 
therefore necessary to paint quickly, and as far 
as possible, definitively. If any re-touches are 
necessary, these must be put on in distemper when 
the surface is dry. But as the lime can no longer 
absorb them, they are very perishable and too 
often disappear. 

These, the broad principles of fresco painting, 


99 H 2 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


are further complicated by a number of details, 
very important for the preservation of the colours. 

As the durability of the fresco depends above all 
on the wall and its cement, both must engage the 
attention of the painter. No material containing 
saltpetre must be used in the construction of the 
wall, and if the surface be smooth it must be 
roughened and made granular, so that the mortar 
may adhere firmly. 

This mortar consists of two strata. The first 
covers the entire surface to be decorated, and is 
left rough, that the second coat may hold well. 
When the first coat is dry the artist draws his 
design onit. Prior to this he will have executed 
a cartoon, from which he now makes a tracing, 
pricking out the design. This tracing he transfers 
to the surface of fresh plaster by pouncing, “e., 
by driving coloured powder through the pricked 
holes. When this is done, the outline is gone 
over with the brush, which will enable the 
painter to re-adjust the details of his picture and 
to place it, piece by piece, on the new coat of 
plaster. 

The plaster of the second stratum must not be 
thick, and is prepared in such a manner that it 
can be applied fragmentarily ; that is to say, only 
so much is laid on as the artist can cover in a 
single day, for only so long will the plaster be fresh 
enough to paint on. 

The general tracing 1s now used in pieces, which 
fit together and serve in succession to trace upon 
the fresh plaster on which the artist is about to 
paint; he adjusts each piece, on the one hand, to 
the complete drawing made upon the first layer ; 

100 


FRESCO 


on the other, to the portion already completed on 
the second. 

In old frescoes it is possible to recognise the 
traces of the drawing where they have been gone 
over and strengthened in the mortar with a stylus. 
By this means the drawing was easily found again 
in the course of the work; there was no danger of 
losing it, as in other processes, by covering it with 
colour. The joins of each fragment are still 
apparent, enabling one to see what the artist 
succeeded in painting each day. Thus in the 
School of Athens, for instance, we learn that, gene- 
rally speaking, each figure was painted in one day. 
The pieces which make up the architecture are 
much larger, and their very dimensions reveal a 
prodigious dexterity. 

As fresco only admits of colours that resist the 
action of lime, the very restricted palette is deprived 
of such brilliant colours as orpiment, lake, cinnabar, 
and emerald green. As a fact, the fresco painter 
does not use a palette at all; he could not pre- 
pare colours in sufficient abundance upon it. 
He has little pots, in which every tint and every 
gradation of tint, shadow, half-tone, and light 
are prepared, enabling him to cover quickly and 
sufficiently. 

In conclusion, it must be said that in spite of 
the theory, correct enough in principle, that fresco 
is exclusively a water-colour process without agglu- 
tinant of any kind, it is necessary to have recourse 
to some kind of size to fix certain powders, which, 
like azure, ultramarine, and carbon black, do not 
blend with water. Cennini recommends the use 
of white of egg. In practice the white or the yolk 

IOl 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


is used indifferently, and sometimes the two, mixed 
together. Cennini makes distinctions, sometimes 
of a very naive kind, between the choice of eggs 
with dark and light yolks. The important point 
is that the lime absorbs this gluten and retains it. 
Mons. Beaudoin has lately executed a fresco at 
the Petit Palais, which, he tells me, he painted 
entirely after the instrucrions given by Cennini in 
his Tveatise. He considers the old Florentine 
master the best possible guide for the fresco 
painter. 


Painting with Egg, or Tempera. 

This process, like distemper, one of the most 
ancient of all, is merely a kind of distemper in which 
size 1s replaced by raw egg. 

But it is capable of a number of combinations. 
Both white and yolk of the egg may be used, 
or only the yolk, and to these may be added 
resin or wax, which give transparence, or such 
ingredients as vinegar, which prevent the decay of 
the egg. 

Painting with egg will produce results differing 
greatly in appearance, according to its degree of 
opacity. It can either be opaque, or as transparent 
as water-colour. Some paintings with egg are 
hardly to be distinguished from fresco; others may 
be mistaken for oil pictures. How many people 
know that Ghirlandajo’s portrait of an Old Man 
with a Child in the Louvre is painted, not with 
oil, but with egg ? | 

Vibert has found by analysing eggs that they 
contain substances suitable for painting, such as 
caseine, oilof egg, andalbumen. With these primary 

102 


EAINDING BXECULED WITH EGG 


AN OLD MAN WITH A CHILD, by GHIRLANDAJO. (The Louvre.) 


vee 


EGG-VEHICLES 
i 
elements, mixed with resins dissolved in oil of egg 
and wax with ammonia, a process of egg-painting 
can be carried out, which Vibert considers purer 
and more durable than the old method, because 
it rejects the useless ingredients of the egg, 
such as sulphur, which would affect white lead 
injuriously.* 

Painting with egg accordingly no longer requires 
the complicated manipulations practised by the 
Primitives and referred to in Cennini’s volume. 

For egg-colours, as now prepared by. artists’ 
colourmen, a white palette of china, glass, metal, 
enamel or celluloid is used, as for water-colour. 
Paper, cardboard, wood or canvas may be used to 
paint upon. It is unnecessary to prime these 
surfaces, the under-painting will be a sufficient 
substitute for this. But if the surface is too rough, 
recourse may be had to a priming which will 
facilitate execution: an egg-priming, absorbent and 
insoluble in water, obtained by two layers of egg 
paint soaked in water. 

The paint dries at once if it is moistened with 
water; if the painter wants to work onit ina moist 
state he has only to dip his brush occasionally in 
a little agualenta. Lightly applied, this aqualenta 
permits of re-touches and fusions by suspending 
momentarily the absorption of the colour, like a 
varnish used for re-touching. But if the painting 
has to be varnished, a water-varnish is used, 
which brings up the tone, sustains it, and harmonises 
it with what the painter is working on at the 
moment. When any re-painting is done on this 
water-varnish, the portion so treated sinks in. But 


* Vibert, La Science de la Peinture, 1891. 
103 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


if it is rubbed over again with water-varnish it 
regains its transparence. When finished the 
picture should be varnished with water-varnish, 
and when this is quite dry, with ordinary picture 
varnish, 

This venerable process, which is now much 
neglected, produced works of great durability ; 


perhaps some day it may recover the popularity it 
once enjoyed. 


Oil-Painting. 

Ever since the Renaissance the process most 
in favour has been oil-painting. Commanding 
resources which other methods lack, it gives the 
opacity of high lights, and the transparence of 
shadows, a flat and a rich liguid effect with 
equal success. It allows of re-touching and con- 
sequently of a more precise and elaborate execution 
than any other medium. In execution it may be 
suave, rich, or vigorous as occasion requires. Un- 
fortunately these qualities are counterbalanced 
by certain defects, the most serious of which are 
the transformations effected by time. Oil colours 
deteriorate in various ways as a result of causes 
we shall presently discuss. 

First we will briefly describe the process. 

In France pigments are ground with an oil called 
eilette, which is an oil expressed from poppies, 
and called @zllette by a corruption of olliette (olivette), 
a name given to the poppy in certain districts. 
This poppy oil is whiter and less viscous than lin- 
seed oil, but less siccative ; linseed oil is therefore 
used in grinding certain dark colours. 

The Italians prefer nut oil. As this is naturally 

104 


a 


ea 


OIL-PAINTING 


yellower, it does not become much more so after 
use; it is more supple, and produces an impasto 
less liable to crack. 

Artists’ colourmen are often reproached for 
putting too much oil in their paints. They reply 
that the generality of artists prefer their paints thin, 
the true reason probably being that dealers are 
able to keep such colours longer.* Some artists, 
on the contrary, spread their colours for a few 
minutes on blotting-paper, knowing that oil, in 
spite of the service it renders, is a destructive agent. 

The effects of its presence proclaim themselves at 
once in many cases by the sinking in of the paint. 
I will speak presently of the deterioration of colour. 
The sinking is not, properly speaking, a deteriora- 
tion ; it is due to the displacement of the oil in the 
impasto. The painter is not much disturbed by it, 
but it is an annoyance to him when he wishes to 
fuse a new passage with one already completed and 
when he wants to judge of the general effect. 

If a layer of colour be laid upon a porous material 
or another layer of colour not perfectly dry, it sinks 
in; that is to say, the oil, instead of remaining equally 
distributed round the particles of coloured powder, 
travels between the particles, and soaks into the 
porous matter or the older layer of colour, which 
is itself porous if not perfectly dry; the powder, 
thus deserted by its agglutinant, assumes a dull, 
indeterminate appearance, especially in the shadows, 
to which the oil had given depth and transparence. 
All that is required is to restore the oil the 
colour has lost, or to give it a coat of varnish, the 
resin of which will fill up the pores of the colour 

* Vibert, Za Sccence de la Peinture. 
105 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


abandoned by the oil; the paint will then recover 
its transparence and its liquid appearance, 

If the artist paints upon a stratum the pores of 
which, though empty of oil, have condensed so 
much in the process of drying that they do not 
absorb the oil of the over-painting, there is no sinking 
in, but the impasto lacks cohesion; as the oil of the 
new stratum does not take root in the stratum below, 
there is no complete adhesion, and the durability of 
the work will not be assured. Each time that the 
painter wishes to add something, he should use a 
re-touching varnish capable of uniting the strata 
and thus ensuring the homogeneity of the picture. 

Oil-painting, by virtue of the opacity of its high 
lights and the transparence of its shadows, allows 
of great variety in execution, and enables the painter 
to obtain light or depth at will. 

The result is that there are a great many different 
manners of painting in this medium, and it is the 
only process thus favoured. Broadly speaking, 
the traditional precept: load the high lights, and keep 
the shadows thin, will be found the safest rule, and 
the one most in accordance with the resources of 
the process. The loading of the high lights 
enhances their reflecting power, while the lightness 
of the shadows gives more freedom of effect to the oil 
and the varnish. ‘This is the classic method most 
generally adopted. But by taking advantage of the 
absorbent quality of gesso primings, the colour may 
be absolutely flattened, just as an almost vitreous 
transparence may be obtained by glazes. The 
palette knife may lay on the colour in smooth, full, 
shining flakes, very individual in appearance. The 
brush again allows of a great variety of touch. 

106 


EOADED IMPASTO 


Relief obtained by loaded touches : THE FLAYED Ox, 


by REMBRANDT. 


nw 


ie 


METHODS OF OIL PAINTERS 


Some painters get their modelling and suggest form 
by sweeping strokes, which mingle the tones of 
light and shade, and give an intermediate half-tone, 
sometimes dirty, and often dangerous, though 
occasionally satisfactory; it is a lazy method, 
perhaps, but it has a certain poetic charm due to 
its monochromy. Prudhon, and more especially 
Henner, were masters of this kind of handling. 

The manner which determines the half-tone, 
and applies it in a rich, full impasto, is totally 
different. The method of working in hatchings or 
juxtaposed touches is more modern; these may 
vibrate as with the Impressionists, but they do not 
always vibrate, if the tone has been used rather to 
model the form than to heighten the light, as some 
of our contemporaries use it. This manner when 
exaggerated becomes Pointillisme, anothervery varied 
process, which ranges from the quiet tenderness of 
Ernest Laurent to the scientific formula of Signac. 

All these methods are very interesting, but their 
durability is questionable ; they depend too often 
upon devices adopted exclusively to enhance the 
effects of handling, with little regard for the nature 
of the elements employed. We shall see, when we 
discuss the deterioration of colour, what serious 
consequences result from such carelessness. 

At its point of departure, the under-painting or 
blocking in, oil-painting may invoke the aid of other 
processes. In our historical sketch of the various 
processes we have seen that many artists of the 
Renaissance laid in their pictures in distemper. The 
Primitives put oil glazes over under-paintings carried 
out in egg; it is therefore permissible to sketch 
in the composition with egg and water-colour, or 

107 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
rears ne vessel 
even with pure water-colour. Vibert recommends 
this process, but enjoins those who use it to varnish 
the water-colour before painting on it in oils. 

Nevertheless, under-painting in oil is the favourite 
method, in spite of the tradition which attributes 
the use of distemper to the great Venetian masters, 
Titian and Veronese. Before it is worked over, this 
under-painting must be allowed to dry thoroughly. 
This will take perhaps a fortnight. 

If at a later stage the painter wants to make 
changes, and to substitute a light tone for a dark 
one, the latter must be removed entirely with 
benzine* and re-painted in the desired tone. How 
many artists lack the courage for this irksome 
business! But when they see their pictures again 
after some years, they always regret their im- 
prudence. 

When we treat of varnishes, we shall describe 
the final attentions required by a finished oil picture. 


Encaustic Painting. 


The technique of the ancients is unknown to 
us. As we have seen in our history of processes, 
Vitruvius, Pliny, and Philostratus speak of it 
without describing its methods. In the eighteenth 
century, and at the beginning of the nineteenth, 
several learned amateurs and artists undertook 
very interesting researches. In 1884, Messrs. 
Cros and Henry at last formulated a method, 
which is not perhaps identical with that of the 


* Rub the portion that is to be removed with a little cotton-wool dipped in 
benzine, and then scrape the paint until it is all gone. This method may also 
be used to reduce an overloaded part ; for this, less benzine should be applied, 
and the scraping should be less drastic. Benzine evaporates very quickly, and 
has no after-effect. 


108 


as 


ENCAUSTIC 


ee  ——— 


ancients, but which is fairly practical, and enables 
artists to paint in encaustic. 

The process has very appreciable advantages. 
The colours dry immediately, and it is possible to 
alter without scraping away the original passage. 
The wax gives transparence and relief. The colour 
does not scale; it is not affected by damp, and 
resists the attacks of worms. It may perhaps attract 
dust and retain it. But it is easier to remove this 
from it than from an oil-painting. Unfortunately, 
the process is a difficult one, and the subtleties of 
modelling are not easy to achieve in it. 

The encaustic painter uses a stove made of metal 
or earthenware, in which he burns charcoal. This 
serves to—1. Prepare the coloured waxes. 2. Keep 
the palette warm. 3. Heat the irons which are used 
for modelling. In addition to this furnace, there 
is a palette, a disc of metal—iron or copper—coated 
with pewter; it has an iron handle set in wood, 
and the disc is stamped with a few hollows like 
little cups. Virgin wax is used, with a little 
colophony, which gives brilliance and tenacity. 

The quantity of wax necessary for each colour 
varies in proportion as this colour is light or heavy 
of body. Messrs. Cros and Henry have adopted the 
following receipt, which is given in grammes accord- 
ing to the Comte de Caylus’ formula. Mixtures of 
wax, resin, and powder are heated over a slow fire 
in a jar of enamelled o1 pewter-lined metal. When 
properly fused, these are poured into grooved wooden 
trays and put away out of the dust as soon as they 
are dry. Composite colours can be prepared in this 
way as well as simple colours. 

When the painter is ready to begin, he puts the 

10g 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
a 


CAYLUS’ FORMULA.* 


COLOURS. WAX. WEIGHT. 
White lead ; f 18 grammes. 30 grammes, 
Ceruse i : : 20 3 30 (2 
Vermilion . : : 40 e go 4 
Aa ate lair ig EY Ce co 30" te 
Burnt ochre : : 40 ra 30 ‘3 
Roman ochre . ; 40 m 30 3 
Ochre of ru : 40 4s 30 2 
Ultramarine ; 30 * 30 
Ultramarine ash ‘ 24. 30 3 
Ivory black ; 40 & 30 3 
Green lake : : 38 2 30 Ks 


necessary amount of coloured wax on the hot 
palette. As soon as it is melted, it is laid on with 
an ordinary paint-brush. To model, irons of 
various shapes are used ; the artist modifies them to 
suit his taste. These irons, heated in the fire, serve 
to fuse the touches which have been too roughly 
applied by the brush. All kinds of material are 
used to paint on: wood (even fir), canvas with a 
size priming, stone, gesso, slate, cardboard and 


paper. 


Solid or Raffaelli Oil Colours. 

Mons. Raffaelli has invented an easy and 
expeditious process. It has all the facility of 
pastel, the colours are ready to use, and are made 
up into sticks. It is a derivation from encaustic, 
and the sticks seem to be composed of a similar 
mixture. 


* The French gramme is 15°432 grains. 
I1IO 


« ENVELOPPEE » HANDLING 


1. Fragment. Fat impasto, modelled in accordance with the forms. 


ee oet eine te ap 


DISEASES OF PICTURES 
ne Ene 

They are used like a pastel or a coloured 
crayon. If the dull effect of crayon is desired, 
the painting must be left as it is; if the painter 
wants a luminous surface, he can varnish it with 
some kind of picture varnish; if he wishes his 
work to have the same effect as an oil-paining, 
he takes a brush, dips it in spirits of turpentine 
or petroleum, and passes it over the colour when 
the picture is finished. It will then fuse and 
assume the desired appearance. 

Another way is to block in the composition with 
ordinary oil-paint and to continue with solid 
colours, or the picture may be painted partly with 
oil colours and partly with the solid colours, and 
finally varnished. 


THE DISEASES OF PICTURES 


The deteriorations to which processes other than 
oil-painting are prone are so inherent in the 
nature of the materials used, that we have noted 
many of them in describing; these processes; we 
shall also deal with them again in connection with 
the preservation and restoration of pictures. 

We know already that damp is the worst enemy 
of pastels and water-colours, and we have pointed 
out the best means of guarding against its ravages. 
We alsoknowwhat defects shouldbe guarded against 
in a wall on which a fresco is to be painted, etc. 

Oil-painting, the process most in favour at the 
present day, is subject to accidents more numerous 
and complex than any other; its supports, its 
oils, its varishes, its colours all undergo or bring 
about deteriorations. It is necessary to study 

Ili 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
Eee nNOS 
each of these deleterious forces. The material 
collaborators of the oil-painter call for the greatest 
care in preparation, owing to their importance to 
the future of a picture. And it seems the more 
essential to insist upon this, seeing that they are 
too often neglected, and that a false studio tradition 
tends to aggravate this neglect more and more. 


I, DETERIORATIONS DUE TO BASES 


The Wooden Panel. 

The woods most in favour are poplar, tulip 
wood, oak, cedar and mahogany. Pine or fir, in 
common with all resinous woods, must be avoided ; 
the resin exudes and works havoc in the picture. 
Mahogany is superior to all other woods: it dries 
more equably ; it repels the attacks of worms, and 
finally, it is porous, allowing the paint to penetrate 
and adhere well. Meissonier used plane wood, 
the grain of which is very fine. Girardot speaks 
well of chestnut, which has the advantage of 
affording a lighter ground than mahogany; like 
mahogany, it is safe from the attacks of worms. 

All panels should be absolutely dry, otherwise 
there will be expansion and contraction, and the 
movements of the wood will cause the paint to crack. 

If the panel is small, a thin one may be chosen, 
for this will be more easily kept straight against 


the frame or between the grooves of the picture-_ 


box, and if it should get bent, it will be possible 
to straighten it. 

Large panels, on the other hand, should be 
thick ; they will then be less affected by the varia- 
tions of the temperature. Nevertheless, it is well 
to parquet, or reinforce them by battens. 

112 


= 


CRADLING OR PARQUETING 
ae 
There are two ways of parqueting or cradling. 

The simplest kind consists of slips of wood 
glued behind the panel. These slips, from 4 to 
5 centimetres wide, are arranged in parallel lines 
from 8 to 10 centimetres apart. They are then 
notched at intervals of from 8 to 10 centimetres to 
receive cross-slips. The crossings are firmly glued 
together, and when the whole grating is dry and 
firm, it is, in its turn, glued to the back of the panel. 

This summary process is used for little panels of 
thin or soft wood. Valuable pictures on larger and 
heavier panels require a more complicated system. 
The upright battens are either fixed to the panel 
with glue, or dovetailed into it. They are pierced 
at intervals to receive the cross-pieces, which are 
slipped through the holes, but not glued. These 
second battens are cut a little narrower than the 
notches, so as not to fill them up entirely, but to 
leave a certain amount of play to the movement 
of the panel, under the influence of variations in 
the temperature. The parqueting is a supporting 
corset, not an instrument of torture, which would 
induce evils as grave as those it seeks to 
remedy. 

Although wooden panels resist - destructive 
agencies better than any other supports, it is 
necessary to protect them against damp and insects 
by painting them on the back and on the edges. 
The panel (and its parqueting, if it is parqueted) 
should be entirely covered with paint. Some 
persons even advise that two coats of paint should 
be applied, and finally, one of varnish. Such 
precautions make the panel practically invulnerable 
to attacks from without. 

P. 113 I 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
Cee NE SS 

This fact may be demonstrated by reference to 
the manner in which old triptychs, exposed for 
centuries to the damp of churches, have stood the 
test. The three panels of the same wood are not 
always in an equally good state of preservation. 
The two shutters, painted on both sides, have 
generally lasted, because the paint protected the 
wood from damp and from insects, whereas the 
central panel, only one side of which is painted, 1s 
too often damaged by their action; the atmo- 
spheric variations have caused it to warp, and the 
colour, unable to follow the expansions and con- 
tractions of the wood, has gradually cracked and 
scaled. 

In Italy, panels were preferred to canvas until 
the Renaissance. After Raphael, canvas was very 
generally used; many large pictures such as the 
Saint Michael and the Madonna dt Folgno, 
originally painted on panel, were transferred to 
canvas.* 

In the Netherlands, panels were used until the 
time of Rubens. His Virgin with Angels in the 
Louvre is painted upon panel. 

As it was necessary to join several boards 
together for very large pictures, painters bestowed 
much care upon the solidity of these junctions. 
Strips of canvas were glued over the joints of 
the panels, and sometimes the whole surface was 
covered with a canvas or a piece of tanned leather, 
a very ancient practice, noted by Cennini and by 
the monk Theophilus.+ It is possible to paint 


* See p. 201 for the transfer of the A/adonna di Foligno. 
t+ It has been found that on old panels, completely rotten, the size had 
remained intact, and that even at the joins, which had been strengthened by 


II4 


CARDBOARD AND PAPER 

ba 

directly upon a panel, without any preliminary 
preparation. It is sufficient to wash over the 
panel with rectified spirits of turpentine—not with 
water, for the damp might warp the wood—and 
then to rub it with oil, which will prevent the 
oil of the paint from soaking too deeply into the 
panel and producing excessive sinking. 


Cardboard and Paper. 

Cardboard and paper may be used for painting 
in oils without any preliminary preparation, but they 
are by nature fragile, and they absorb the colour. 
The cohesion is perfect, and some painters think 
that cardboard of the best quality is preferable even 
to panel, because it is safe from the ravages of 
insects and does not split. Personally, I should 
be afraid of its tendency to warp in the damp, 
and of certain black spots, which sometimes work 
through the impasto. In any case, the artist 
should be very careful of the quality of his paper 
or cardboard. 

Paper may, indeed, be pasted on to cardboard. 
Girardot, the Orientalist, paints studies on white 
paper, laid on cardboard or panel with paste made 
of rye flour. He varnishes his study lightly with 
Vibert varnish. 


Canvas. 

Canvas, the support most generally used in our 
day, has the advantage of a flexibility that enables 
it to lend itself to the play of the paint, but as oil 
when directly in contact with the fibres of the 
canvas burns them, and very soon destroys them, 


strips of canvas impregnated with this size, the wood had been preserved where 
it was thus covered (Vibert, Za Sczence de la Peiniure). 


115 fe 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


it is necessary to coat it with an insulating pre- 
paration. 

When painters first began to use canvas as a 
base, they painted on a priming of size; they 
then attempted to paint without this insulator, but 
they soon recognised the ravages worked by the oil, 
and returned to the use of the priming. 

A simple coating of size is sufficient to make a 
closely woven canvas—what is called a fine 
canvas—fit to paint on in oils. The canvas will 
be more or less absorbent according to the thick- 
ness of the priming; in other words, the paint 
will be more or less flat (mat) if the priming is 
thin, and will become less and less so in proportion 
to its thickness. 

The adhesion of the colours is perfect, and this 
priming has the further advantage of not being 
liable to crack in the manner of thicker preparations. 

The practice of painting on a canvas simply 
coated with size is therefore, if the flat tone and the 
difficulty of covering the Sura be accepted, a 
most excellent process for the preservation of colour. 
Among contemporary artists, Gandara has adopted 
this method ; Dagnan has also used it on several 
occasions, notably in his famous picture La Ceéne, 
now belonging to Mme. de Béarn. 

Both artists tell me they are very well pleased 
with the results. Dagnan, however, admits that 
it 1S mecessary to paint very thickly in order 
to give richness. I think myself that in white 
and high-toned passages the result is always a 
little dull. 

This simple priming can only be applied to very 
fine canvases. On coarse canvases it would be 

116 


SIZE 


difficult to get the paint even; the most careful 
work would leave sinuosities and crevices very 
unpleasant in their effect. Itis therefore necessary 
to use a thicker priming for such canvases. 

But in any case, size is a primary necessity. 


Sizes. 

A size must be impervious to damp, imperish- 
able, elastic, and non-injurious to colours. It 
must protect the painting from the destructive 
agencies that may arise from or through the canvas, 
or the panel, and its elasticity, which will enable 
it to yield to the play of the support, will prevent it 
from cracking. 

The sizes most generally used are made of 
albumen, glue, gelatine, and caseine. 

Albumen is obtained from white of egg beaten to 
a froth. The dry deposit of this is sold by artists’ 
colourmen. It may be used for priming canvases, 
but it would be unwise to paint thickly with colours 
in powder on such a priming. 

The size most commonly used, glue, was origin- 
ally made from the feet, nerves, snouts, skins, and 
parings of any kind, of slaughtered cattle. It is 
now sold ready for use. But if made of inferior 
materials, it ferments and becomes mouldy, and 
contains germs of mildew, which develop under 
the paint and detach it from its support. 

Conscientious artists’ colourmen ought to prepare 
their own glue. 

As for artists, if they want to have properiy 
primed canvases, they should buy dry gelatine. 
Gelatine is glue purified and dried ; dissolved in hot 
water, it produces a size which is easy to use, 


117 


Sy 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


Caseine, an extract of cheese, is sold dry by 
dealers in chemical products. When soaked in 
cold water it swells, but does not dissolve until a 
few grammes of ammonia are added to it (to 20 
grammes of caseine allow 100 grammes of cold 
water and 4 grammes of ammonia). It must be 
mixed by stirring it with a spatula of wood, glass, or 
horn (not metal) ; it will then yield an imperishable 
size, impervious to damp. Unfortunately, it is dry 
and brittle. To remedy these defects glycerine 
is often added (10 grammes for the quantity given 
above). The glycerine is mixed well into the size, 
and the whole is strained through a fine sieve or 
muslin. 

The glycerine will enable the painter to lay on 
the size thickly, without any fear of its cracking; 
but as this glycerine robs it of its damp-resisting 
qualities, and, indeed, makes it very liable to mil- 
dew, it is better to dispense with glycerine and 
lay on the size thinly. If the artist wishes to 
preserve the absorbent quality of the canvas, the 
priming must be slight; a single thin coating will 
be sufficient. 


Primings. 

To make the surface of the support smooth 
and even, Paris white (whiting), pure or coloured 
with brown, black, or red powder, is_ used. 
Such were the primings most in favour in the seven- 
teenth century, the disastrous consequences of 
which we have seen. At the end of the next century 
painters often mixed litharge with the preparation 
to make the colour dry faster, but as this covered 
the picture with granulations, the use of litharge 

118 


PRIMINGS 


was abandoned. Mérimée declares that if the 
litharge had been well ground this inconvenience 
would have been avoided. This is possible. But 
Vibert, who mentions the practice, condemns it, 
together with all “ siccative measures,” which he 
thinks ‘‘ could never improve the quality ofa priming 
doomed from its nature to scale.” 

All these primings were laid on thinly, if the 
painter wished to keep his surface absorbent. 

The priming of whiting and size, which the 
Primitives used on their panels, was, on the other 
hand, several millimetres thick ; it was never tinted, 
but always perfectly white. It was also rubbed over 
with pumice-stone when dry and made extremely 
smooth. 

But in any case, it may be laid down as an axiom 
that the canvas must be protected from the oil by 
a coat of size. True, size is not perfect; if badly 
prepared it becomes a medium of destruction. But 
if properly prepared it is a perfect insulator—the 
pictures of the old masters prove this—whereas oil 
is always destructive to canvas in the long run. 

I am bound, however, to admit that there is not 
perfect agreement on this point. Jacques Blockx, in 
his Compendium, which is full of excellent ideas, 
condemns primings of Spanish white and size, and 
recommends the use of a mixture of oil and white 
lead.* 


* It is enjoined in these terms: ‘‘ There is a very simple way of avoiding 
the sizing of canvases, and preventing the oil from penetrating to their 
fibres. Fix the canvas on a stretcher and wet it. It will tighten by 
shrinking. Then cover it with a thick layer of a firm impasto, laid on with 
a strong knife” (J. Blockx, Compendium). This method would certainly 
imprison a certain amount of moisture between the canvas and the layer of 
paint, the consequence of which would inevitably prove disastrous. And 
then, setting aside the action of the oil, this proceeding would be very 
inconvenient, because of the accumulation of canvases which would have to be 


IIg 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


Vibert concludes as follows: ‘‘ All oil primings 
should be avoided, and the painter should be content 
with size. But it must be carefully chosen.” 

A single layer of white lead, lightly applied over 
dry size, makes a very good priming, but the surface 
will be rough and difficult to cover if the canvas is 
coarse. 

A second layer may be applied when the first is 
thoroughly dry, but unless this is the case the oil 
imprisoned in the first layer will become acid ang 
burn the canvas through the size. 

This second coat, which must also be very thin, 
is designed to fill up the interstices of the canvas. 
The dangers of the over-thick layer of size 
menace the over-thick priming also, but with this 
difference, that whereas with size the consequences 
are at once apparent, with oil the canvas preserves 
its elasticity for several years; when the over- 
thick preparation has thoroughly dried, it cracks 
and splits the paint above. 

Two layers at most, then, will be a prudent 
prescription. 

The inconveniences of the thick priming depend 
a good deal on the nature of the support. The 
suppleness of canvas requires an equal supple- 
ness in the priming, which must be able to follow 
its movements. On panelor cardboard the rigidity 
of the support allows of successive layers of the 
preparation, if the painter is careful to see that one 
is thoroughly dry before the next is applied. Even 
for panel, however, a priming is no more indispens- 
able than for cardboard or paper. Maxence paints 


hung up to dry before use. Finally, Dinet has pointed out to me that if the 
moisture prevented the oil from eating into the tissue, it would also prevent the 
adhesion of the layer of colour. 


I20 


PRIMINGS 
ee 
directly on mahogany panels without any kind of 
priming. 

As regards the tone of the priming, we have seen 
that the Primitives preferred white preparations, 
and that dark-toned primings worked terrible havoc 
in the seventeenth century. 

White primings give transparence to glazes; they 
lend a richness of effect like that of painted glass. 
On the other hand, light tones, unless they are laid 
on very thickly, and contain very little oil or varnish, 
have an empty appearance over a white priming 
and lose a great deal of their freshness. The whole 
soon assumes a yellowish tinge. 

With an absorbent canvas the under-painting, 
instead of working through in light tones, as with 
a light priming, takes on the colour of the over- 
painting; the upward strugele of the white is trans- 
formed into a downward effort. The result is 
reversed, and both the defects and qualities of the 
light priming disappear.* With dark preparations 
the high tones do not look empty, but they lack the 
solidity required to keep the ground in its place, and 
a uniformly monotonous tone gradually invades the 
picture. Poussin’s pictures in the Louvre may be 
cited as examples. 

We have seen that Oudry recommended primings 
in half-tones. This was the kind of priming 
adopted by Géréme. He kept a store of canvases 
rubbed over in half-tones of various tints, and when 
he was about to paint, he chose the priming the 
colour of which gave him a ground in harmony 
with his subject.+ 


* Roll paints on absorbent canvases. 
t+ The half-tone must be, of course, of some permanent earth or ochre. 


lal 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


As a general rule, when a canvas is non- 
absorbent, the priming comes through sooner or 
later, and a picture gradually acquires the tone of 
the preparation. 

Taking this into account, the white priming 
would seem to be the best to use, for the effect of 
its action is to make the picture lighter, and when 
the artist is blocking in his composition, it leads 
him to paint more luminously than would a gray or 
dark ground. But he will be obliged, contrary to 
classic custom, not to paint his shadows too thinly, 
for if they are too thin they will offer less resistance 
to the priming. They must be painted with a 
moderate amount of colour, though they must be 
less loaded than the high lights. 


Choice of Canvases. 

When buying a canvas prepared only with 
size, itis merely necessary to examine the quality 
of the canvas, and it will be useless to pay any 
attention to the size, which will always be dry. 
But if a canvas with an oil-priming be chosen, the 
artist should scratch it with his finger-nail to make 
sure that it is perfectly dry, and that he cannot 
remove any of the coating. 

It is, further, wise to see if the priming adheres 
perfectly to the canvas ; that is to say, if it contains 
enough agglutinant to remain firm when it is 
covered with paint. A corner of the canvas should 
be rolled between the fingers; it should yield to 
the pressure without cracking. 

When a canvas has to be rolled up for transport, 
or for any other reason, the priming should be 
outside, and the canvas surface inside. Then, if 

122 


Merah =) PENDIMENTO 


1, Cracks due to excess of oil and premature varnishing : 
THE WOMAN WITH THE DAGGER, by FALGUIERE. (The Luxembourg.) 


2, Underpainting insufficiently erased: THE APOTHEOSIS OF HoMER, by 
INGRES. (The Louvre.) 


5 
i 


bal Ste Pid bys 


PRESERVATION OF CANVASES 
EEE En 
any cracks are made, they will be automatically 
closed when the canvas is released and stretched 
again. 


Preservation of Canvases. 


Two precautions can be taken for the pre- 
servation of canvases. ‘The first consists of fixing 
on the stretcher a supplementary canvas primed 
with oil, the priming turned towards the stretcher ; 
over this the canvas for the picture should then 
be stretched. 

The other (and this is the method prescribed by 
Vibert) is to cover the back of the canvas with two 
coats of water-colour fixative. Coatings of india- 
rubber dissolved in petroleum, of wax, of shellac, 
and of resin are also recommended. 

All these devices are intended to protect the 
canvas from the dampness of walls. 

Vibert even advises a precaution against fire, 
which serves the further purpose of protecting the 
canvas against shocks from behind. It isto fix a 
metal plate on a light stretcher behind the picture 
by means of hinges. In proposing this cuirass, 
Vibert alludes to the fact that a picture which is 
treated with the greatest consideration when hang- 
ing often receives very rough usage when it stands 
on the ground with its face to the wall. 

Girardot has pointed out to me that in course 
of time the battens of the stretcher mark and 
disfigure the canvas. He thinks this might be 
remedied by rounding the battens at the inner 
edges.* The idea seems to me an excellent one. 


* This plan is now generally adopted in England.—[ 77. ] 
T23 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


I]. ACCIDENTS 


Various Kinds of Cracks. 


The cracking of a priming, as we have already 
noted, entails various disasters. It is necessary to 
make a careful study of these, and, in general, of 
all cracks due to supports, vehicles, and combina- 
tions of colours; we shall thus pass logically from 
the support to vehicles, oils, and varnishes. 

The brittle preparation—a defect from which 
many works of the Flemish Primitives have suffered 
—is betrayed by regular cracks, in the shape of 
minute squares very close together, a kind of coat 
of mail which appears even upon such solidly 
painted pictures as those of the Van Eycks (see 
the Virgin with a Donor in the Louvre). This 
network of cracks comes from the size in the 
priming. 

We have seen what dangers threaten canvases 
which have received a very thick priming in over- 
smooth layers. The over-thickness induces large, 
round spiral cracks, such as may be seen in the 
portrait of a young girl by Ingres, in the Louvre. 

Over-smooth layers induce other cracks, in 
regular squares, an exaggerated form of the net- 
work already noted in early Flemish pictures. 
This kind of crack may also be caused by rolling 
the canvas the wrong way—.e., with the painted 
surface inside the roll. ‘The reverse process, as we © 
have already pointed out, should always be adopted. © 

When a coat of dark colour is laid upon a light 
one not properly dry, the differences in the drying 
processes of the two cause a play of opposing 
forces, producing gaping cracks and rents which 


124 


DELTERIORATIO! 


OF COLOURS 


Cracks due to bitumen : CHERUBINI, by INGRES (The Louvre.) 


eek 


ta 


. 


BLOOM 


lay bare the under-painting. In a picture painted 
with colours too freely mixed with oil, cracks of 
the same kind will appear, forming tiny lakes or 
islands with indented edges. 

Sometimes oil and varnish combine to commit 
misdeeds of a different kind. The varnish cracks 
and~separates into regular flakes, detached from 
each other. This betrays both the presence of too 
much oil in the impasto, and the premature 
varnishing of the picture. (We shall see that 
varnishing should be postponed for a considerabie 
time.) A very characteristic example of this kind 
of injury is to be seen in a picture by Falguiére in 
the Luxembourg, of a woman holding a dagger. 

When the prematurely applied varnish alone is 
in fault, it, too, produces cracks in squares, 
which expose the paint, and leave it open to a very 
dangerous enemy, damp. This makes its way 
between the flakes of varnish and gradually attacks 
the painting below. 


Bloom. 
The accident of varnish called bloom comes on 
rapidly, but may not increase for years. 

It makes its appearance first as a kind of bluish 
veil or vapour overspreading the whole or a part of 
the picture. It is nothing in itself, but it is a 
significant indication, demanding immediate atten- 
tion. Passing through picture galleries during 
the changes of the seasons, we often notice vague 
suspicions of bloom caused by the dampness of the 
atmosphere, which are as yet in their first phase. 

The remedy is very simple. The varnish should 
be polished with a silk handkerchief or a chamois 

125 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


leather, and a regular temperature should be kept 
up round the picture, which should be guarded 
against sudden exposure to heat or damp. 

But this is not all. We shall see further on how 
all-important the place where one hangs a picture 
may be to its health. We may find in the same 
room two pictures, one in perfect condition and 
the other perishing. When bloom appears, it is 
necessary to discover the cause. It indicates a 
state of ill-health due to exterior causes. 

The first stage in which the bloom appears as 
a bluish vapour may last a long time; it may even 
never get beyond this. But it may also enter upon 
a second phase, in which the vapour has a grayer 
tint. After this comes a period in which the resin 
pulverises. The varnish becomes disintegrated 
and the bloom whitens. Unless active measures 
are taken, the evil continues its ravages, the bloom 
begins to turn yellow; it darkens gradually 
and becomes black. At this point the evil has 
triumphed; the painting itself is attacked, and 
sometimes even the canvas. 

Very intense moisture, water for instance, 
dropping upon a picture and lodging there—as in 
the case of a picture in the Versailles Museum, 
reproduced on pl. xix.—soon induces bloom. The 
varnish pales, whitens, is disintegrated and pul- 
verises. 

Prompt measures in the first stages of bloom are 
nearly always successful. But when the evil is too 
great, the doctor—z.e., the restorer—must always 
be called in. Suitable remedies are prescribed in 
the chapter dealing with restoration. 

Certain very characteristic cracks, of which the 

120 


RESTORATIONS AND CRACKS 


1, Bloomcaused by excessive damp. 2, Restoration by DURANDEAU , res- 
MARIGNAN, by FRAGONARD’s Son. torer of the Versailles Museum. 


3. Cracks caused by thin painting, over a smooth priming : 
PORTRAIT OF M™¢ RIVIERE, by INGRES. (The Louvre.) 


—————————— ee —— — a ——— 


” 


reer we ay 


RAVAGES OF BITUMEN 

ee ta nae einen 
Louvre has numerous examples among the French 
pictures of the nineteenth century, are the results 
of bitumen. They are marked by round blisters 
which have split into craters, or have run into 
streaks, giving the painting the appearance of a 
Skin attacked by boils and torn by the resulting 
wounds. This is one of the most terrible ravages 
that a picture can undergo. 

Bitumen, which never dries, separates from the 
colour with which it was mixed, melts, runs, carries 
away everything, disintegrates everything. After 
having travelled slowly among the layers of colour 
to which it belongs, it accumulates at a point 
where pigment, free from bitumen, and reinforced 
by the admixture of white or of some solid colour, 
bars its passage. There it accumulates, blisters 
the impasto, and forms a round mass in relief, which 
soon cracks and runs. It is sometimes a long 
while before it manifests its presence thus. In one 
of his articles Charles Blanc praised the solidity ot 
Prudhon’s Civist, painted twenty-five years before, 
which had shown no signs of deterioration. Go 
and look at it now. It is one of the worst ruins 
in the Louvre. It may have hung in a cool place, 
sheltered from the summer heat, for twenty-five 
years. A change of position, or the installation of 
a hot-air outlet near the picture, was enough to set 
the ravages of bitumen in action on the surface, 
after a long process of secret mischief in the depths 
of the impasto. 


Over-Painting and Pentimenti. 
We have seen that the painter must always be 
distrustful of under-paintings that have a tendency 
127 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


to work through. All over-painting of a different 
value to that which it covers, light upon dark, or dark 
' upon light, will be influenced by the tone it covers. 

These loaded over-paintings are always, in the 
end, affected by the colour beneath them. Theterm 


pentimento 1s used to describe those ghosts. wav hicltes. 


appear through the paint, like reminders of ancient — 
faults which their authors believe to be forgotten, | 
but which betray themselves nevertheless. Dark 
passages over-painted in light tones are the most 
obvious fentimenti. Sometimes they do not take 
very long to appear, and as in these days painters 
are very careless, we may instance a ggod many 
in contemporary sso ries: 

There is a pentimento in the Louvre, in the sky of 
the Apotheosis of Homer, to the right, above the 
ficure of Alexander. Such carelessness is very 
surprising in the case of an artist as scrupulous as 
Ingres, and the vacillation it betrays is the more 
extraordinary, inasmuch as the picture was very 
rapidly executed. 

In such cases the remedy is to scratch out the 
under-painting, to remove it with benzine, and to 
paint afresh on the new ground thus obtained. 

In a picture by Velazquez in the Prado at 
Madrid, the Equestrian Portrat of Philip IV., the 
horse appears to have eight legs. Velazquez 
supposed, no doubt, that he had finally obliterated - 
the first legs under a heavy layer of the same tone 
as the background. But in the course of time the 
legs have re-appeared. 

Photography often reveals re-paintings in a 
surprising manner, before they have actually 
manifested themselves as pentimentt. 

128 


CRACKS AND REPAINTS 


OILS 
eee 

A firm of publishers proposed to photograph 
Henner’s Recumbent Nymph (Luxembourg) for 
reproduction in a series illustrating Modern Art. 
The photographic plate showed such a pentimento 
that they had to give up all idea of repro- 
ducing the picture. The outline of the nymph’s 
body was entirely surrounded by a second outline. 
Nothing of this is visible to the eye of the spectator 
at present, but it may be safely predicted that 
some day this charming work will be completely 
disfigured. 

Girardot showed me a pentimento in the thigh of 
Rembrandt's Bathsheba. He also told me that in 
Gérome’s Duel de Pierrot at Chantilly the silhouette 
of an intrusive figure has made its appearance. 


Oils. 

Liquids very different in origin, composition, 
and properties are all classed under the generic 
term of oils. | 

The lightest kinds, called essential oils, are 
extracted by distillation from certain plants or 
resins, and are not viscous. 

The so-called empyreumatic oils are obtained 
from wax, camphor, etc. 

Animal oils are taken from animal substances. 
The only one with which we need deal here is oil of 
egg; itis no longer used by modern painters, but 
Vibert praises its qualities, and believes it will come 
into favour again some day.* Finally, there are 
the fixed oils, extracted from vegetable substances. 
Of these, linseed oil, poppy oil, and nut oil are 
used in painting, because of their siccative qualities. 


* Vibert, Za Science de la Peinture. 
P. 129 K 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


These oils dry without evaporating; they in- 
crease in weight and diminish in volume as they 
pass from a liquid to a solid state. This increase 
in weight is due to the oxygen they absorb. They 
are so transformed in the process that they are no 
longer sensitive to the same influences. Solidified 
oil is unaffected by any of the solvents which act 
upon them in a liquid state. Benzine is the only 
exception. On the other hand, alcohols, which 
have no effect on fresh oil, will dissolve dried oil. 

Linseed oil, the most siccative of the three oils 
used in painting, is more transparent than poppy 
oil... But it is also yellower in tone. It turns acid 
more easily: a serious matter, since this produces 
abrasions in the painting. All sour oil should be 
rejected and never used for grinding colours. Its 
presence is easily detected in the tube.* Lake, for 
instance, is transformed into a paste resembling 
india-rubber. ‘‘When colours have got into this 
state,” says Dinet, ‘(they should be thrown away, 
for they will never dry, and they cause pictures to 
crack and blacken.” — 

Nut oil is never used in France. French artists 
prefer the so-called qullette, or poppy oil. It is 
whiter than the others, but dries less quickly. Its 
limpidity makes it preferable for use in whites, blues, 
and violets to linseed oil, the yellow tone of which 
has an unfortunate effect on the tone of the coloured 
powder ; but linseed oil is preferable for colours 
that take a long time to dry. | 

Cennini gives this receipt in his venerable Treatise: 

“ Pour the linseed oil into a cauldron of brass or copper, or 

* The oil separates from the paint. It is useless to attempt to mix the 
colour and the oil again. This will not a‘icct the acidity of the oil, and will 
not prevent its ravages. 


130 


SICCATIVES 
ee 


into a basin; expose it to the sun in the dog-days, and if you 
can keep it thus until it is reduced by one-half, it will be per- 
fect to paint with.” 

The formula has not been forgotten. I know 
many artists who adopt this method, and who keep 
an open glass jar full of linseed oil on the window- 
sill. Dagnan showed me one in his studio. This 
oil becomes a paste, and is highly siccative. 


Siccatives or Dryers. 

Whatever the nature of the oil used in grinding 
colours, the powder itself dries very unequally, and 
certain powders, such as crimson lake, ivory black, 
and zinc white, take a long time to dry. 

As it is of the utmost importance that the various 
layers of colour in a picture should solidify equally, 
and as the conflict which results from the opposite _ 
case is one of the principal causes of deterioration, 
painters have cast about for a means of equalising 
the tendencies of white lead and Saturnine reds, 
which dry very quickly, yellow ochres, emerald 
greens, cobalt blues, and cadmiums, which dry 
normally, and blacks and crimsons, which dry very 
slowly. Siccatives have been compounded for the 
purpose. As oilis solidified by the absorption of the 
oxygen in the air, certain products are added to it 
which are called siccatives, because they attract 
oxygen and then yield it up to the oil, the oxidisa- 
tion of which is accelerated by this process. 

The siccative most in use is Courtray, a compound 
of oxide of manganese and oxide of lead in equal 
parts. (It is a form of Strong Drying Oil). 

Courtray siccative is a very powerful dryer, 
which, however, is in very bad odour in studios, 

131 K 2 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


It is said to rob oil of its suppleness, to injure 
certain colours, and to be itself very dark. Accord- 
ing to Vibert, this darkness is the fault of the 
artists’ colourmen, who imagine that it ought to be 
very black, and impress this upon the manufacturers. 
If it were put on the market chemically pure it would 
be much lighter.* It is said, further, that it causes 
paint to crack. But Dinet exonerates it on this 
count. ‘It has faults enough,” he says, ‘‘ without 
being made responsible for this in addition. It 
will only cause pictures to crack when it is mixed 
with colours laid over other colours before these 
are dry.” We have already noticed that these 
super-impositions result in cracks. 

Dinet even thinks that a dryer tends to prevent 
cracking. A dark colour which has been dried 
quickly will bear the premature application of a 
varnish, whereas without the intervention of the 
siccative, the colour imprisoned beneath the varnish 
dries more slowly than the latter, is subjected to 
its action, and cracks. 

In any case, dryers should be very sparingly 
used. 

Vibert recommends painters not to keep a dryer © 
in a dipper attached to the palette. When this is 
done, the artist dips his brush into it mechanically, 
and. far too frequently. When used lavishly, its 
action is not more effectual. It should only be 
employed for colours that dry badly, such as blacks 
and certain browns. 

Dinet has given me a receipt by which some 
of the defects of Courtray siccative may be 
neutralised. 

* Vibert, Za Sezence de la Peinture. 
132 


ESSENTIAL OILS 
eee 

Make a mixture as follows: One-quarter or one- 
third of Courtray siccative with three-quarters or 
two-thirds of linseed oil. Leave the bottle uncorked 
and exposed to the action of the sun and the air 
from one to six months. If a skin forms on the 
surface, break it, that the air may get to the oil. 
This mixture becomes more siccative as it absorbs 
the oxygen. 

The mixture, which will be cloudy at first, will 
purify and even become lighter, while the sub- 
stances which would have affected the colours settle 
at the bottom. When the work of purification is 
complete, decant the mixture carefully, and strain 
it if necessary; a dark but transparent liquid will 
be obtained. This highly siccative oil, mixed 
sparingly with the paint, will give a better result 
than pure Courtray dryer. 

Referring to other dryers, Dinet says in his little 
work on Les Fléaux de la Peinture: 

“Flemish dryer and Haarlem dryer are not, 
properly speaking, siccatives, but rather excellent 
oily varnishes ; they harden paint by the resin they 
contain, but accelerate the drying process very 
little, especially in cold, damp weather.” 


Essential Oils. 

As non-volatile or fixed oils turn yellow and 
dry slowly, painters have recourse to lighter 
oils, known as volatile or essential oils. Like the 
water in water-colour painting, they give great 
fluidity and disappear by evaporation. 

Complete evaporation is only obtained with 
rectified essential oils; all others leave a viscous 
residuum, which never dries, turns yellow, and 


133 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


é 

even blackens when the particles of dust in the 
air are deposited uponit. It is therefore necessary 
to use rectified essential oils, that is, oils which 
have been distilled and relieved of their resin. As 
this resin is generated again after a while, only 
oils recently rectified should be used. | 

The three essential oils in general use are: Spirit 
of turpentine, oil of spike, and petroleum. The 
first is extracted from fir trees, the second from 
lavender plants. 

They should be kept in hermetically closed 
bottles to prevent them from turning to resin by 
contact with the air. 


Petroleum evaporates and leaves no trace when» 


it is used in a rapidly volatile form. It serves as, 


a vehicle, after which it disappears entirely. But » 


unless it is perfectly volatile, the presence of certain 


« 


greasy constituents of petroleum—vaseline, for © 


instance, which never dries—produces deplorable — 


results. 


Petroleum has its merits. It does not deteriorate | 


in the bottle, or give pigments the gray, chalky 


tone produced by other essential oils, and it — 


1. 
7 
oe 


4 
i] 


traverses the layers of colour by the little interior” 


canals which intersect them; even when these have 


contracted by drying up, it penetrates them anew, 
carrying oils and resins with it, and gives additional 
cohesion to the different strata. 

But sometimes petroleum precipitates oils and 
resins instead of mixing with them; it then 
forms a viscous substance which will never dry. 
It should therefore be subjected to preliminary 
tests with the materials the painter habitually 
uses. 


134 


nf 


f 
“e 


? 


V ARNISHES ; 


al 


Varnishes. . : 

In oil-painting, varnishes may be used in the 
execution as well as for the preservation of a 
picture. Thus they may be applied only as a 
final coating, laid over the colour; but resins 
dissolved in liquids, z.¢., varnishes, may also be 
mixed with the colours themselves. 

Varnishes should be studied in their various 
functions: their composition, their use in conjunc- 
tion with colour, and their services as a transparent 
substance laid over paint to preserve it and enhance 
its brilliance, should all be examined. 


_ Composition of Varnishes. | 
Varnishes are composed of various resins 
- dissolved in various liquids. 
The principal resins are: amber, the different 
- copals—Zanzibar, Angola, etc.—the lac known as 
shellac, mastic, etc. 

_ Amber and copal dissolved in oil are called oil 
varnishes. When spirit is added, they form a mixed 
varnish. 

Only spirit of turpentine is used to dissolve 
-damar and mastic ; a very clear but perishable 

-_ varnish. 

Venice turpentine, a resin which is inferior to 
the above, dries badly, yellows, and causes the 
painting to crack. - : 

A petroleum varnish invented by Vibert 1s much 
used in studios, but it is not known what resin 1s 
dissolved in it. In his book, La Science de la 
Peinture, the inventor declares that “no resin at 
present in use is really fit to be introduced in 
painting.” Nearly all resins are in a. state of 


135 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
i), H(i = ne HS 
disorganisation ; in other words, they are subject 
to a continuous evolution which modifies their 
nature and proportions “ from month to month.” 

“On the other hand,” continues Vibert, “we 
have noted in several varnishes, varying amounts 
of a certain constituent which is non-divisible, 
colourless, hard, crystallisable, transparent, and 
soluble in oil or petroleum; this we may call 
normal resin, which has not as yet undergone any 
transformation.” 

With this normal resin dissolved in petroleum 
of different degrees of evaporation, Vibert is 
supposed to have compounded his painting or oil 
varnish, his varnish for re-touching, and even a 
picture varnish, for final application. ‘ 

Many artists use these varnishes and are well 
satisfied with them. I have, nevertheless, heard 
Bouguereau complain of them. It must be said, 
however, that he had only tried them once, to 
re-touch a picture already finished. “It had 
cracked”; but it is hardly fair to lay the blame 
on the varnish, which was applied to substances 
in no way prepared to receive it. The best of 
remedies may do harm if used in unfavourable 
conditions. 

Bail also told me that he was by no means 
pleased with Vibert varnish. But the artist’s 
individual processes must always be taken into 
account in using these productions. Each one 
should make his own experiments. 

Varnishes with a basis of alcohol should, how- 
ever, be unconditionally avoided. A varnish of 
this kind was long popular in studios, and I could 
name contemporary painters who were its victims ; 

136 


DANGERS OF CER TAIN VARNISHES 


a restorer, who bound me to secrecy, made certain 
confidences to me on this score. Restorers are the 
doctors of pictures ; they know a great deal about 
their infirmities. But they are discreet, for neither 
artists nor collectors would forgive them if they 
gossiped. 

In short, let us beware of varnishes with a basis 
of alcohol, even if they smell very good. Instead 
of binding the various strata of the painting 
together they isolate them, and form intermediate 
patches; some fine day the painting will begin to 
peel off in strips and scales, because these varnishes, 
insoluble in oil, have remained isolated without 
assisting the general cohesion. 

We must not forget that for a long period oil 
forms a soft and al skin, which cee not harden 
for over thirty years, say some; while others put it 
at eighty. Varnishes, on the other hand, after the 
evaporation of the liquid which dissolves their 
resins, leave a dry, hard, brittle skin, very liable to 
shrink. 

What will happen if a supple layer of fresh 
colour be laid upon this hard, retractile surface? 
The soft stratum will yield to the action of the hard 
stratum, and cracks will appear. 

We shall see further on that this action of varnish 
must not be overlooked, even when it is applied as 
a final layer, that is to say, as a picture varnish in 
the ordinary sense. 

But when it is interposed between various layers 
of colour the more dangerous position may cause 
eraver mischief. The use of varnish to mix 
with pigments demands the greatest care. The 
fact that it prevents the sinking in of colour 


137 


* 
THE TECHNIQUE OF PQINTINGs 


makes it a temptation to painters, and they are 
also easily seduced into the use of solvents to 
neutralise the troublesome dark tones which oil 
gives to their painting as it dries. But the con- 
sequences of these remedies used in the process of 
the work itself may be disastrous. 

It would be wise only to use varnishes prepared 
with turpentine, with oil, or with spirit of petro- 
leum, and to test them by admixture with oil, spirit 
of petroleum, and spirit of lavender; if they remain 
clear after several days, they may be used. 

As to the sinking in of colour, this may be 
neutralised by rubbing over very lightly with oil 
and spirit of turpentine, which will evaporate after 
showing the real quality of the tone that has sunk.* 

Ifa remedy less cautious, more active, and more 
certain be preferred, a little oil may be added to the 
resinous varnish used, which should be extremely 
light (z.e., the proportion of resin should be small 
to that of spirit); this will make the varnish more 
capable of amalgamating with the oil in the paint. 
The varnish will be less brittle, the oil will become 
harder, the connection is made easier and the 
cohesion more complete. 

_ The painter may continue on this path; he may 
use colours ground in oil mixed with. varnish, and 
he may varnish, during and after his work, with 
varnish containing a little oil; the affiliation of 
the substances will make union more possible. 


_ ™ The most detestable receipts are in favour in studios ; pomades containing 
~ wax, alcohol, varnish, and finally this popular and incomprehensible nostrum : 
A mixture of one-third of alcohol, one-third of water, and one-third of oil, well 
shaken before use. The best plan is to practise discerning the exact tone 
through the sinking, and to paint upon it without any expedient for lightening 
it. The painting will gain in unity by this method. Géréme recommends it, 
and Girardot, who habitually practises it, is well satisfied with the results ; his 
paintings never suffer from changes of tone. 


138 


* 


¥ 


& 
we ge V ARNISHES 


It is very probable that the famous process of 
the Van Eycks and of the Flemings down to 
Rubens was a mixture of this kind (linseed oil and 
mastic, say some). 

The personal taste of each artist will intervene 
in his practice. Some like to handle a very fluid 
material, others prefer one that is thick and viscous. 
Colours prepared with resin are rather sticky, and 
some painters introduce it even at the moment of 
execution. 

» Oil varnishes without spirit, like copal, give an 
unctuous vehicle which dries slowly.* Those who 
prefer a material which dries quickly, is viscous 
and causes the brush to drag, naturally have 
recourse to varnishes made with spirit, which are 
more or less siccative according to the quantity of 
spirit used. If a little oil be allowed, the mixture 
dries moderately fast; when the oil is replaced by 
mastic, damar, or petroleum it dries very promptly. 
But this exclusion of oil presents dangers; the 
abuse of resin produces cracks in certain cases, in 
the glazes, for instance. 

Re-touching mixtures which contain wax should 
be avoided. Wax is not injurious to the stratum 
of colour it covers, but it prevents any matter 
applied to it from adhering; strata or re-touches 
laid upon it will not hold. 

This lack of adhesion is so complete that Dinet 
made the following observation to me: ‘ The 
painter who wants to get a mat effect, and obtains — 


* Mons. Carolus Duran recommended me copal, which he uses habitually. | 
Here is a receipt which Géréme gave to his pupils : Four parts of copal mixed 
with Durozier oil, and three parts of rectified essential oil, Mix them by 
pouring the essential oil into the copal in several portions, and stir well to 
prevent it from precipitating. Girardot assures me that this gives the painting 
the solidity of a flint. by ; 


* She 


= 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
eee 
it by laying a thin solution of wax over his picture, 
may rest assured that no restorer will ever be able 
to re-touch his work; every fresh re-touch will fail 
to adhere, and will come away with the slightest 
friction as soon as desiccation is complete.” 

If we sum up the services varnishes may render, 
we shall see that, mixed with colours more or less 
freely, they either give an added transparence to 
the colouring powders or make them denser. The 
utmost degree of transparence is obtained by 
resins—copal or amber—dissolved in oil without 
any spirit; the addition of spirit gives a duller, 
grayer, more chalky tone after it has evaporated. 
But the use of all varnishes for actual painting and 
re-touching is very questionable, and the mixing of 
varnish with pigment, though it has been practised 
by all the great oil-painters, is fraught with danger 
under the present conditions of painting and 
materials, 


Varnishing. 


Varnish is applied to a finished picture to 
bring up the sunken portions, to give transparence, 
and to protect colours from external action, mainly 
that of the gases in the atmosphere. : 

This service it certainly renders, but often at a 
heavy price. 

Let us suppose that a picture has been executed 
under the most favourable conditions as regards 
solidity and preservation; that there is nothing to 
fear from its support, its priming, its oil; that the 
colours have been applied in normal strata and in 
accordance with the rules of a sound technique. 

140 


BLOOM 


The final coat of varnish may darken it, turn it 
yellow, and make it crack. 

It may, in the first place, suffer itself; that is to 
say, it may be attacked by maladies which will 
decompose the resins of which it consists. It may 
also affect the painting beneath it, in consequence 
of its wrong use, or of the abnormal conditions in 
which it has been applied. 

The natural enemies of varnish are heat, damp, 
sudden alternations of heat and cold, air and light. 

Heat swells resins and softens them, then, as it 
subsides, it makes them liable to shrink. The 
surface crinkles, cracks appear, and air and damp 
enter by these interstices. 

Damp may have been imprisoned under the 
varnish at the moment when it was applied; it 
may also lodge upon the surface, and slowly pene- 
trate the resin. This causes the bluish formation 
known as “bloom,” the first stage, as we have 
seen, in the commonest disease of varnish. 

When warmth is restored, naturally or by 
friction, the blue tinge of the first attack of 
bloom disappears, but the varnish remains per- 
vious; the slightest change in the atmosphere 
brings back the bloom, and the decomposition of 
the resin begins. 

When heat has caused the varnish to crack the 
bloom is stronger, because the damp penetrates 
the fissures very easily. 

The air and the chemical rays of light destroy 
the clearness and transparence of varnish. It 
yellows first all over, which adds a certain charm 
to the picture. This is the golden tone of many 
old pictures, which has completely transformed 


I4I 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
rs 
them; Rubens’ Helena Fourment and her Children 
in the Louvre, is an example of this.* But the 
agreeable monochrome of this yellowish tone 
increases till it becomes a dark brown. After an 
interval, longer or shorter according to its quality, 
the varnish loses its transparence in the shadows, 
thickens, becomes dirty and pitch-like in the high 
lights, greenish in the shadows. When it has 
reached this state the decomposition of the resins 
is complete. 

We shall study the remedy for this state of 
things presently when we discuss the varnishing of 
pictures. 

The preventive method, or rather the precautions 
to be taken when varnishing a picture, may be 
summed up as follows: Test the powers of resist- 
ance of the varnish to which you are about to 
entrust your work. As the enemies to be guarded 
against are light, heat, damp and alternationsoftem- 
perature, all one has to do is to submit the varnish 
to similar but more violent conditions. By expos- 
ing it to all the vicissitudes of the open air, it will 
in a few weeks have been subjected to the varied 
and reiterated attacks of light, heat, and moisture, 
which will reveal its powers of endurance. If it 
behaves satisfactorily, it may be trusted; if not, a 
substitute must be found. ; 

‘‘Whereas some varnishes become brown and 
opaque after a few weeks of exposure in the open 
air,” writes Dinet, ‘I have experimented with 
others which retained all their brilliance and trans- 


* See Zhe Card Party, by Pieter de Hooch, in the Louvre. Some of the 
varnish has scaled off the pavement at the bottom of the canvas. The paint 
below is very light in tone, whereas the rest of the picture is golden. 


142 


V ARNISHING 


parence after undergoing the rigours of the weather 
for over eighteen months. In ordinary conditions, 
I should say that they would last for several 
hundred years without deterioration.” 

In any case, the addition of a little oil to a resin, 
whatever its quality, will arm it against damp. 

We will now consider the actual operation of 
varnishing. Varnish may suffer from the unfavour- 
able conditions in which it has been used. 

Broadly speaking, it may be said that varnishing 
has never been so badly done as at the present day. 
In most cases the operator begins by imprisoning 
a certain amount of damp under his varnish. 

As every picture to be varnished may have 
caught and retained particles of dust, it is washed 
to remove this dust. 

When it is found sufficient to use pure water 
only for this washing, and the picture is well wiped 
and thoroughly dried after the process, no evils are 
to be feared. But in our modern towns dust is 
greasy and tenacious, and will not always yield to 
water. Painters then have recourse to soap, or at 
least to slightly soapy water. Nothing could be more 
fatal to the future of the picture. The soap slips 
into the crevices even of the smoothest painting ; in 
a picture where a loaded impasto creates more 
numerous cavities, it is almost impossible to remove 
it. It remains, never dries, and attracts the mois- 
ture either through the canvas or through the resin 
of the varnish. And some fine day bloom appears. 

The best method of cleaning before varnishing, 
the most prudent and the safest, is to use spirits of 
turpentine or of petroleum. 

As they evaporate very quickly, and as their 


143 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
a 
action ceases at once, they may be used without 
any ill effects if the operator is fairly skilful; but 
he must not forget that they are strong solvents, 
and that caution is required. 

Water mixed with spirits of wine may also be 
used. 

Benzine must be avoided; its action is too rapid 
and too strong. 

When re-varnishing a picture which has already 
been varnished, water mixed with a solvent should 
not be used, for the solvent would attack the upper 
layer of varnish, and the water introduced would 
remain and would cause bloom. 

Finally, a preliminary varnish, which is often 
used in the studios of young painters because it is 
convenient and cheap—varnish prepared with white 
of egg—must be condemned unconditionally. It is 
surprising that its ravages should not have been 
recognised and pointed out sooner. It makes the 
painting dull, covers it with a kind of leprosy, and 
never disappears altogether when it is removed to 
make way for the permanent varnish. As this 
operation is never complete, some of the white of 
egg 1s imprisoned under the cuirass of new varnish : 
in other words, a damp-producing agent is intro- 
duced which will give rise to bloom. 

After careful cleaning the picture should be 
varnished in a very dry room at a temperature of 
20°C. (68 F.). If it has been painted entirely with 
oil, this will be sufficient; if resins have been 
used, it may be put in the sun. This warms it, 
and it will be all the better for it. But this pro- 
ceeding would be dangerous to a picture painted 
exclusively with oil, and lately finished ; the varnish 


144 


VARNISHING 
laid upon the warm paint would dry still more 
quickly, and a conflict would ensue during the 
process of desiccation. Cracks would soon make 
their appearance. 

In spite of all precautions, varnish, as we have 
seen, may be attacked from without by damp. 
When a vapour covers its polished surface with a 
haze, the resin will be attacked and gradually 
decomposed, if its solvent has not made it imper- 
vious to moisture. Varnishes mixed with spirit 
and with petroleum are less resistant than oil 
varnishes, which, when applied under proper con- 
ditions, do not become cloudy, and protect the 
resin better against damp. 

When dealing with bloom on a picture we saw 
that varnish, when applied too soon, allows the 
damp to penetrate, and produces chill. It will 
now be well to return to this question of var- 
nishing, and of the proper time for it. 

It is, of course, well known in studios that 
varnishing should be put off as long as possible. 
But the exact opposite is really customary. The 
annual exhibitions of the Salon necessitate varnish- 
ings not only premature, but executed under condi- 
tions most adverse to care and cleanliness. Now 
varnish on a painting which is still drying after this 
varnish has dried, produces either enormous cracks 
or tiny, almost imperceptible ones, which rob the 
colour of its transparence, give it a tendency to 
sink in, and make the layer of resin turn black. 

If it is impossible to wait long enough before 
varnishing, it is prudent to paint with resins mixed 
with the oil of the paint itself. 

Dinet is in favour of a varnish made of gum 


P, I45 L 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
fi 
mastic and essential oil. He thinks it stands 
restoration and transfer better. As this varnish is 
expensive, it is sometimes mixed with inferior resins, 
balsams, Venice turpentine, copaiba, and Canada 
balsam, which make it more liable to deteriorate, 
but also cause it to dry more slowly, and permit 
of a more confident use of it when premature var- 
nishing 1s necessary. 

The varnish should be laid on very thinly. 
“Whatever the varnish may be,” says Dinet, ‘it 
should never be laid on thickly; the upper skin, 
drying faster, will prevent the under part from 
hardening, and cracks will inevitably show them- 
selves. ... The picture should, of course, be 
protected from dust and moisture until the varnish 
is perfectly dry. This will be in a few hours, if 
a spirit varnish be used, and a few days, if 
the varnish be an oily one. Heat and light 
accelerate the process considerably.” Finally, 
the artist must not be too lavish with the number 
of coats he applies, even if they are thin and properly 
dried, for the thicker the varnish, the more power it 
has over the colours, and the more it will blacken. 
Generally speaking, a thin varnish is best.. We 
shall return to this question when we discuss the 
removal of varnish and restoration. 


II]. THE DETERIORATION OF COLOURS 


In England, the chemists attached to certain 
artistic societies analyse the colours sold by trades- 
men, and indicate their composition and the 
reactions to which they are subject either by inter- 
mixture with others, or under the influence of 

146 


ANALYSIS OF PIGMENTS 


atmospheric agents. Other precautions have been 
suggested. Vibert in his book on painting, pro- 
posed that painters should require artists’ colour- 
men to give the chemical formula of each pigment 
on the label of the tube containing it, side by side 
with the usual name of the colour. 

“Thus,” he adds, ‘‘if the tradesman should not 
furnish the article he describes, he could be 
summoned like any other tradesman guilty of adul- 
teration. Whereas at present the artist cannot 
even complain, for such descriptions as nasturtium 
lake, geranium lake, Chinese vermilion, etc., which 
artists’ colourmen give to their wares, no more 
bind them to anything than do the terms golden 
yellow, malachite green, Venetian red, etc.” 

Some tradesmen have adopted the chemical 
formula on each tube, but the practice is far from 
general. 

The chemist who analyses colours, however, 
although he may give us very useful information, 
cannot furnish any absolute certainty. He does 
not know what are the processes of each painter, 
and in practice, many unforeseen causes may invali- 
date his predictions. Certain reactions predicted by 
him may not take place in certain cases, because 
the oil or the varnish may have isolated the mole- 
cules of the colours which were used, while in other 
cases this same oil may have hastened the decom- 
position of two substances which the chemist 
thought capable of agreeing. 

Dagnan told me that when he was a young man, 
he once began to paint on a bad canvas, saying to 
himself: ‘I will just do everything I can to make 
it crack.” He accumulated all the negligences 


147 Le 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
perenne 
which are reputed most dangerous. The result 
was that the painting remained perfectly solid and 
intact. As, however, he did not keep the canvas, 
and cannot tell in what state it might have been by 
this time, his little experiment can hardly be con- 
sidered conclusive. Still, certain deteriorations 
begin very quickly ; his experiment therefore goes 
to prove that an artist must create his own 
method by testing the solidity of the results he 
obtains. Every method of painting includes a 
certain empirical element which does not, of course, 
escape the natural laws of chemical combinations, 
but which often escapes attention in virtue of its 
unconscious origin. It acts one knows not how 
nor why. It is repeated involuntarily. If it is 
good, the artist must submit and profit by it; if it 
is bad, he must renounce it. 

Chemists may in the future produce new colours 
to take the place of those which are still defective. 
During the past century they have given us colours 
no less brilliant than durable, which have been of 
inestimable service. Unfortunately, these happy 
discoveries have been discounted by some fatal 
inventions, such as that of aniline dyes, the 
treacherous splendours of which have seduced so 
many artists and ravaged so many pictures. 

Vibert’s plan, which is in truth very practical, 
would have the advantage of making fraudulent 
compounds less frequent, but it would do little to 
enlighten artists, who for the most part are incapable 
of deducing from a chemical formula the result of 
using the colour represented by that formula. It 
would, however, give painters more confidence in 
the products sold to them. 

148 


ES 


ACTION OF LIGHT ON PIGMENTS 


The best practical method in the present state 
of things is set forth by Dinet in his volume on 
Les Fléaux de la Peinture (The Scourges of Painting). 
Other artists, notably Brascassat, tried similar, 
but less practical experiments.* The method is 
empirical, and this places it within the reach of all. 
The artist defends himself unaided and in a very 
simple manner. 

The chief causes of the deterioration of colours 
are the action of atmospheric gases and of the 
chemical rays of light. 

We have seen that varnish acts more or less as 
a protection against atmospheric gases. It is not 
a perfect shield, but it is the best we know so far. 
Nevertheless, for some years past, the practice of 
framing pictures under glass has grown in favour. 
The glass protects them from dust and from the 
alternations of heat and cold. But this method 
can only be used for pictures of moderate dimen- 
sions. 

To protect colour from the actinic rays of light, 
which fade some colours and blacken others, 
the sole method is to cover the picture with a 
curtain, removed only at intervals. But this method, 
which protects the colour against the luminous 
rays, exposes it to the action of darkness, which 
turns the oil yellow. 

All colours or combinations of colours which 
are over-sensitive to light should be banished from 
the palette. 

As the light on a picture in normal conditions— 

* Brascassat used to spread his colours on a board, and put them in the 


sun; later, he compared these with the colours not so treated. It must be 
admitted, setting aside their artistic value, that Brascassat’s pictures have stood 


well. 
149 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


that is to say, in a room or a gallery—is very 
moderate, we are enabled in a very short time to 
arrive at a result which will enlighten us as to the 
consequences of continuous exposure in normal 
conditions, if we expose specimens of colour to the 
prolonged and violent action of full sunlight, the 
force of which is enormously greater than that of 
light indoors, though their composition is identical. 

“Tf,” says Dinet, ‘it takes five minutes to make 
a piece of photographic paper exposed to the full 
light of the sun turn black, it will take more than 
five hundred minutes to blacken this same piece of 
paper if we fasten it to the wall 1o feet from 
the window in a well-lighted room ; that is to say, in 
the light in which a picture is commonly hung. As 
the phenomenon is identical in the case of colours, 
we may suppose that those which have resisted the 
direct light of the sun for a year, will endure for 
centuries under the ordinary conditions in which 
pictures are exhibited.’’* 

The colours to be tested should be laid upon a 
very dry canvas. They should be placed vertically 
in streaks of pure colour, in scumbles, in glazes, 
and in various mixtures, principally with white. 
When the colours thus spread are quite dry, the 
canvas should be cut horizontally, so that each 
colour is halved. The operator will thus have two 
identical pieces of canvas for his experiment. 
One half should be kept in a dark corner of the 
studio, at some distance from the stove, the emana- 
tions from which might affect the experiment. The 
other half should be exposed to the full light of the 
sun at noon. 

* Dinet, Les Fi¢aux de la Peinture, 
150 


a 


TESTS TO APPLY TO COLOURS 


At the end of six months—six summer months, 
if possible—the two pieces of canvas should be com- 
pared. Those colours which have stood the test may 
be considered fairly durable. Certain colours, and 
amongst these are some of the most indispensable, 
could not endure a longer term of exposure. 

The two pieces should then be replaced, and 
the experiment should be prolonged for another six 
months. When the piece which has been exposed 
to the light has been tested for a year, the colours 
which remain intact may be considered durable. 
They will not change. If they should deteriorate 
in normal conditions of exhibition, in the modified 
light of a museum, the change must be attributed 
to other causes, and not to the light. The guilty 
factors will be the oil, the varnish, or some other 
agent. 

The great manufacturers who furnish nearly all 
the colouring matter used by artists’ colourmen give 
excellent products. But certain colours require puri- 
fication and washing, delicate and indispensable 
operations, which wholesale manufacturers some- 
times find it difficult to carry out properly, in 
consequence of the large quantities of material with 
which they have to deal. 

Manufacturers less important and less famous 
are sometimes able to operate more skilfully and 
carefully. Each painter should compose his own 
palette of durable colours, after experiments condi- 
tioned by his individual methods of painting. This 
is a very important point, for the intervention of 
special methods may introduce new elements which 
will bring about complications and produce the most 
unexpected results. 


151 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
————— 
White.* 

White is one of the most important pigments 
used in oil painting. It must cover well, and it 
must be of such a nature as to form part of any 
mixture, without causing the colours with which it 
is combined to deteriorate. 

Meudon white, which has been banished from 
oil painting, is only used with pastel and tempera. 
It could be trusted to stand well, if used with oils, 
but it does not cover, and it dries very badly. 

The best whites to use with oils are zinc white 
and silver white, which is carbonate of lead. 

Though far from perfect, silver white is the best of 
these products, and it is preferable to zinc white. 
Unfortunately, it turns black if brought into contact 
with sulphurs, either on the palette or in external 
agents such as atmospheric gases. é 

It does not always combine readily and safely, 
as it affects certain colours adversely ; for instance, 
it absorbs madder carmines and lakes, and causes 
them to disappear completely. 

Finally, its poisonous nature makes it dangerous 
to use. Some artists have fallen victims to it. 
Painters should not contract the habit of smoking 
cigarettes while they paint. The hand, smeared 
with the paint, may touch the lips or leave particles 
on the cigarette; and the poison will pass into the 
blood through the slightest scratch. Regnault was 
nearly killed by a still graver act of carelessness ; 
he cut a piece of bread with his palette knife, to 


* The purely practical information which follows does not touch upon the 
chemical composition of colours. It is based upon experiments made by 
Dinet for some twenty years. I have added here and there some details taken 
from writers who have treated of colours, and have also gleaned from 
contemporary artists. 


152 


| 
‘ 


WHITE LEAD 


which, no doubt, some particles of the paint 
adhered.* Painters should not, as they too often 
do, when washing their brushes with soft soap and 
water, knead them with their fingers. The white 
lead may penetrate a scratch on the hand. This 
may be nothing, but by constant repetition the evil 
will do its work. There is too much carelessness 
on these points in studios. + 

In spite of these defects, white lead is of great 
service, for it has also very valuable qualities. 
Mixed with oil, it forms a solid paste, very agreeable 
to handle, which dries quickly. Oil, moreover, 
modifies its dangerous action by retaining its 
particles and preventing them from floating in the 
air. The dangers against which artists are warned 
above are greater when the powder is used in body 
colour or tempera, that is to say, with water, which 
leaves it more volatile than does oil, and does not 
retain it. 

Oil also prevents it from turning black when 
combined with certain colours that contain sulphur. 
Cadmium and ultramarine, for instance, well 
washed and freed from an excess of sulphur, may 
be mixed with white lead without fear of results. 
Oil also safeguards white lead against the sulphur 
in the air. Varnish, moreover, protects it entirely 
from this. 

White lead is banished from drawings in water- 
colour and body-colour (when neither fixed nor 
varnished) because of its susceptibility to the action 
of sulphur. The gum, which is the only agglutinant 


* Duparc, Correspondance de Henri Regnault, 1904. : 
+ About twenty years ago a young pupil of Bouguereau’s died of lead- 
poisoning. The fact was told me by the doctor who attended him. 


153 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
————— 
used, does not protect it. It blackens terribly and 
very rapidly. 

It has another serious defect, which is that it 
absorbs madders and Saturnine red (red lead). 
We shall return to this when we consider the 
various reds. 

Zinc white, which has no action upon colours, is 
non-susceptible to sulphurs and non-poisonous; itis 
chemically perfect, but, in practice, it dries badly 
and often cracks. It should only be used in excep- 
tional cases, and then with caution. 

In water-colour and gouache, it is free from the 
defects it shows when mixed with oil. Mixed with 
water and gum, it dries and covers almost as well 
as does white lead mixed with oil. I may note a 
curious detail in this connection; zinc white ground 
in water may blacken slightly if exposed to the sun ; 
but it regains its brilliance in a more subdued 
light. 

As oil has a tendency to declare its presence in 
colours laid on a palette, it sometimes happens 
that a white will take on a yellowish tone when 
drying in the shade; the oil is the cause of this ; 
it has nothing to do with the quality of the 
white. 

As these two colours are unaffected by light, 
it is useless to submit them to the test of exposure 
tothe sun. The artist must take care, however, to 
buy them from a good colourman. 


Reds. 
The reds derived from iron are the durable 
reds; whether alone or in mixtures, they never 


perish, 
154 


VERMILION 


JADLE OF REDS. 


ed 


DURABLE REDS. REDS TO AVOID, 
Red ochre Cochineal carmines 
Venetian red Madder carmines 
Mars red Mercury vermilion 
Cadmium red, called Crimson lake : 

Cadmium vermilion Geranium lake 


Vermilion.—Vermilion may be called the last 
conquest of science, the most recent durable colour 
due to the labours of chemists.* Until the present 
day, vermilion was a sulphide of mercury. Mixed 
with white lead, this vermilion darkens it. It turns 
dark itself under the influence of light. If well 
prepared, it lasts for some time, but if not, it 
deteriorates rapidly. There are portraits, the fresh 
complexions of which have darkened in a few years. 
It will be therefore wise to renounce this treacherous 
colour in favour of the new cadmium vermilion, 
which, if well prepared, is perfectly durable. 

Old writers in their treatises speak of the 
fragility of this mercury vermilion, which they call 
cinnabar. Yet in some cases, notably in Dutch 
and Flemish portraits, it has stood very well. This 
may be due to their having been kept in semi- 
darkness, sheltered from direct rays of light; the 
thick yellow varnish with which they are coated may 
also have modified the chemical action of the light. 

We must not forget, moreover, that restorers, 
when they remove the varnish from a picture, 
nearly always take off the upper skin of the 


* As a fact, it is a dark cadmium which does duty for vermilion. 
Chemically, this colour is not a vermilion, but a cadmium red. 


155 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
a, 
vermilion, as we shall see later. Naturally fragile, 
and possessing little affinity with oil, it adheres to 
the varnish and comes off with it. As this skin alone 
has darkened, it leaves the red below exposed, and 
this, having been protected from the | ght, is much 
brighter. But in an old picture, these resuscitated 
reds are disconcerting in every sense, and on 
looking closely at them we see that the half. 
tones and the light shadows have disappeared. 
The reds are too raw and flat. 

The bold restorer who wishes to rejuvenate a 
picture always begins on the reds, which will 
freshen up his picture and give it a seductive 
appearance. He puts red on the lips, the cheeks, 
and the draperies. Good people who are fond of 
chattering about art always praise the reds of the 
old masters. These venerable reds are often 
younger than their admirers. 

In any case, even if they are not so modern as 
this, they may very well date from the eighteenth 
century, a period when the works of old masters 
were restored audaciously, on a system by no means 
reverent of artists or their creations. In the cata- 
logues of the royal galleries and collections which 
were the basis of the Louvre, we may read detailed 
accounts for restorations which give us very definite 
information on this head. These accounts record 
expenses incurred for materials to re-touch and to 
glaze the draperies in the Marie de’ Medici series 
and other pictures. Rubens, whose brilliant tones 
are so much admired, was therefore himself 
brightened up by restorers. 

Signs of the removal of the vermilion together 
with the old varnish are to be seen in his A doration. 

150 


LEONARDO’S (?) BELLE FERRONNIERE 


of the Magi (below, to the right), and in one of the 
draperies in the Triumph of Religion. The same 
injury may be noted in a portrait of the President 
de Mesne, by Philippe de Champagne, in the Salle 
La Caze(Louvre). Inthe so-called Belle Ferronmere, 
attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, we have a very 
characteristic example of vermilion that has 
darkened. 

The Belle Ferronniéve wears a red garment, the 
dull, heavy, pasty texture of which is in itself 
highly suspicious. It may be said that the model- 
ling of this gown is very perfunctory. But a 
reflection in the shadow of the left jaw proves 
the deterioration of the colour beyond question. 
This reflection, which comes from the red garment, 
is naturally red; but it was no doubt painted with 
a colour more durable than vermilion, for it has not 
darkened at all. As it is not only light, but lighter 
than the red gown which gives it its colour, we 
cannot doubt that the vermilion of the garment 
has darkened after a removal of the varnish which 
carried away the upper skin and part of the 
modelling. 

Among the numerous passages of the Treatise 
on Painting which deal with reflections, I find this, 
which gives a certificate of authenticity signed by 
Leonardo himself to the coloured reflection in La 
Belle Ferronmiere :— 


“The colour nearest to the reflection tints the reflec- 
tion. . . . Therefore, painter, put into the reflections on 
faces the colour of those parts of the garments which touch 
the flesh, but do not separate them too much by emphasising 
them, unless it is necessary.’””* 


* Leonardo da Vinci, 7veatise on Painting 


157 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


It cannot, therefore, be urged that the rarity of 
coloured reflections in old pictures tells against 
my argument here. 

But we need not go so far back in search of 
instances. Many modern landscapes, only some 
few years old, record the astonishing phenomenon 
of a setting sun much darker than the sky around 
it! The mercury vermilion used has caused this 
disaster. 

Unless the painter is quite sure that he has a 
genuine cadmium vermilion, he must test his 
colour carefully, and if it seems suspicious, he 
must not mix it with white lead. In this case 
he may use zinc white. Dinet obtained a difference 
between the two whites in an experimental test. 
With a good vermilion, the difference is not very 
great; but when the vermont is bad, the difference 
is greatly in favour of zinc white. 

The following experiment, described in Blockx’ 
Compendium, notes the action of light upon vermilion 
obtained from mercury :— 


‘We laid on panels two samples of vermilion ground in 
oil. We exposed the first to the direct rays of the sun, under 
glass and protected from mephitic gases, and the second 
we put away in a tin box, which was ventilated, but into 
which no light could penetrate. At the end of eight or ten 
days we noticed that the sample exposed to the action of the 
light had taken on a superficial grayish tint. A month later 
it had become almost black, whereas the sample in the 
metal box had undergone no material alteration.” 


Madder Carmine. 

This red, which is even less permanent than 
vermilion, is the only indispensable colour which 
science has hitherto been unable to give us ina 
durable form. 

158 


EVANESCENCE OF MADDERS 


Madder does not darken, it disappears. Mixed 
with white, as we have seen, it is absorbed by it. 
As a glaze, that is to say, pure, it evaporates 
quickly; but if the glaze is very thick, or in a 
scumble, it will last. The under-layer, which 
does not change, shows through the evaporated 
but transparent upper layer. 

A dual instance of the disappearance of one part 
and the resistance of the other may be noted ina 
famous work of Raphael’s, the Madonna of Francis I. 
in the Louvre. The drapery over the Virgin’s legs 
is a yellowish white in the lights and a purplish 
red in the shades. The thorough-going enthu- 
siasm of amateurs and artists is apt to recognise 
in this a peculiar material with an iridescent 
effect. They do not understand very well, but 
they accept and applaud, so much so that in 
modern pictures these fantastic draperies, which 
were quite unknown to Raphael, have been devoutly 
reproduced. 

Originally the drapery in question, and other 
such draperies to be found in the pictures of 
Raphael and some other painters, were uniformly 
red. But this red was mixed with white in the 
high lights. The white absorbed the madders, and 
in time took on a yellowish tone, due to the oil and 
to a coat of varnish. In the shadows, on the 
other hand, where the madder was pure and thick, 
it has survived. 

People often admire and cite the brilliance and 
the good preservation of the red madders used by 
the Primitives. These artists, who were always 
prudent, used them pure, without any admixture 
of white. Then their triptychs were kept for 


159 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


centuries in dark churches and chapels, and some. 
times under closed shutters. Under such conditions, 
even comparatively fugitive glazes were able to 
resist for a long time, because they were never 
exposed to the devouring action of strong light. 

Finally, here again the restorer has sometimes 
intervened. Madder glazes formed a temptation 
to which he too often succumbed. The exhibition 
of French Primitives furnished indisputable proof 
of this weakness. 

Dinet declares that in Memling’s Virgin with a 
Donor, in the Louvre, the parts in shadow have the 
appearance of an ancient madder, due to Memling ; 
but the general glaze which overlies the light parts 
has no longer the venerable appearance of old 
madder. | 

The deterioration of madders mixed with white 
may be studied in Leonardo’s Monna Lisa, in the 
Louvre.* Vasari writes enthusiastically of the 
freshness of this portrait, the delicate carmines of 
the lips and cheeks. 

I was speaking of this one day to Dagnan. He 
thinks that Vasari must have exaggerated the 
brilliance of the carnations. He bases his opinion 
on the fact that in the process of darkening to such 
an extent that ithas become almosta monochrome, 
the Gioconda would also have lost its modelling if 
it had once been very fresh and rosy, whereas, on 
the contrary, the modelling has remained very fine 
and delicate, passing without any abrupt transitions 
from the lights to the shadows. 

I repeated his remarks to Dinet, who believes 


* These lines were written before the lamentable disappearance of the 
masterpiece in September, 1911, 


160 


DETERIORATION OF COLOURS 


I. Evaporation of rosy tints due to the use of lake: LA Groconpa, 
by LEONARDO DA VINCI. (The Louvre.) 


2. The rosy tints produced by native earths have lasted. Cracks due to 
a priming prepared with size. The same picture. 


LEONARDO’S MONNA LISA 
ees 
that Vasari described the picture correctly. As 
the carmines of the face were due to madders mixed 
with white, the white has absorbed the madder. 
The modelling was not affected because it was 
obtained, not by the intervention of lakes, but by 
blacks, which, being more durable, have remained, 
and continue to give the gradations Leonardo 
desired. 

When we had reached this point I put a new 
question, which I had also put to Dagnan. I asked 
Dinet if he had not remarked a detail which has 
not, I think, been pointed out hitherto. It is this: 
below this colourless face, the hand is still a delicate 
pink, which seems too rosy by contrast with the 
face. 

Dinet verified my observation, and replied :— 


“This is a further confirmation of my opinion. This is 
what happened. As Leonardo had to paint a fresh complexion, 
he rendered its rosy tones with madder, which has evaporated 
in the whites; but when he painted the hand, the tone of 
which was less fresh and rosy; he used a red ochre, and this 
more durable colour has remained intact. The fact is that 
the earths have not changed and the madders have disappeared. 
And after examining this hand, I shall end by believing, not 
only that La Gioconda was very rosily coloured, but even that 
the rosiness was exaggerated, which would explain the 
impression of freshness by which Leonardo’s contemporaries 
were so much struck.” 


It may be said that the Monna Lisa was brought 
to France by Leonardo in 1515, and that Vasari, 
who was born in 1512, never saw it. It may 
also cause some surprise that Vasari describes 
her eyebrows, when she has none. 

But is it not possible that Vasari repeated a 
studio tradition, and even that he had seen replicas 

P. 161 M 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


of the famous portrait? How could he, himself a 
painter, have committed such a gross error as to 
describe the general appearance of a picture 
inexactly, and to say it was fresh and rosy when it 
was dark and dull? The detail of the eyebrows 
would be less surprising. Besides, there is a 
general opinion, which Dinet mentioned to me 
without, however, supporting it, that the eyebrows 
were put in with a light glaze, and disappeared 
when the picture was cleaned. 

In any case, the pallor of the face and the rosy 
tone of the hands remain inexplicable if we reject 
the theory of the evaporation of the carnations. 
Dinet writes to me as follows in this connection :— 


““T went back to the Louvre. The want of harmony between 
the shadows of the nose and cheeks and those of the fingers, 
which you pointed out to me, is certainly much more pro- 
nounced than I thought. Besides, the lips were painted with 
a lake, the purplish traces of which are still visible. I do 
not maintain thatthe ioconda was a very light picture when 
Leonardo finished it; its tone has been modified only by the 
not very violent darkening of its varnish. If this varnish were 
removed, we should nevertheless find the high lights more 
intense, but on the other hand, some of the shadows and the 
blacks would be much stronger, and the dicord between the 
pallor of the face and the rosiness of the hands would become 
insufferable.”’* 


* In his Zyeatise on Painting, Leonardo gives the following advice, which 
betrays his tendency to see red in carnations, and his habitual abuse of lake :— 

“If you hold your hand up between your eyes and the sun, it will look 
reddish, and show a kind of luminous transparency. 

“Put on the carnations with silk brushes, and while they are fresh you 
can make the shadows as vaporous as you will. The carnations should be 
painted with white, lake, and massicot ; the shadow should be of black and 
matoric (massicot), with a little lake and black. When the picture has been 
sketched in lightly, let it dry, then re-touch it with lake soaked in gum- 
water, and this should have been left some time in the gum-water, because it 
is thus better, and will not have any lustre when it is used. To deepen the 
shadows, take some of the lake already mentioned, soak it in a solution of 
gum and ink, and with this you can paint the shadows of several colours, for 
this tint is transparent, and it will serve to paint the shadows of azure, lake, 


162 


LEONARDO’S (?) BACCHUS 


Other pictures of Leonardo’s which I examined 
in Dinet’s company confirmed our opinion. 

In La Belle Ferronmeére, whose vermilion gown 
we have already discussed, we found a bloodless 
face, almost monochrome, relieved by the vermilion 
reflection mentioned above. Here again every- 
thing points to an evaporation of the carmines due 
to the use of madder. Dinet even added: “I had 
never noticed the lips before. They are so loaded 
with decomposed lakes that Iam convinced they 
were originally brilliantly red. The reflection, 
which is still intact, must have seemed almost 
colourless in comparison.” 

A curious example of technique is furnished by 
the seated Bacchus, which is apparently not by 
Leonardo himself, but which was certainly painted 
on his system by one of his pupils; the figure is of 
an exaggerated red tone, which seems to have 
increased in intensity. As the model was a man, 
whose carnations were darker than those of a 
woman, the ruddy tone was obtained by the use of 
an earth which has not disappeared like a madder. 
Dinet concludes from this that Leonardo and his 
pupils exaggerated the red tones of flesh. 

I find an instructive passage dealing with a 
modern work of art, in Amaury-Duval’s L’Ateler 
a’ Ingres :— 

“TI was fortunate enough to see this portrait* in Mons. 
Ingres’ studio before the opening of the Salon. I remember as 


vermilion, and certain other colours of the same kind. I say this, because, on 
the other hand, the light passages should be shaded with lake, simply mixed 
with gum, on lake that has not been soaked.” 

When we read this, it is easy to understand how the Gzoconda arrived at its 
present tone. The evaporated lakes have left only the black and yellow 
under-painting which served for the modelling. 

* The Portrait of Bertin, in the Louvre. 


103 M 2 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


if I were still before it the strange impression it made on me, 
and how it took me a few moments to accustom myself to 
the purplish tone of the picture. I have seen it very often 
since. I have even madea copy of it, and I now understand 
a phrase of Mons. Ingres’ which puzzled me when he used it: 
‘Time will finish my works for me.’ ‘The portrait has now 
completely lost the appearance which startled me, for this 
reason. The lakes Mons. Ingres used are not very durable, the 
light absorbs them. [Here, we see, Amaury-Duval showed his 
ignorance of the absorption of lakes by whites, which, as we 
shall find presently, must have been very considerable in this 
case.] Oil, on the other hand, turns yellow, and his earlier 
pictures, which have lost their violet tints and gained a golden 
tone from the action of time on the oil, have improved, if not 
actually in colour, at least in their general effect.”’ 


Further on, Amaury-Duval writes thus :— 


‘I saw my copy of Ingres’ Bertin some time after I had 
painted it. I found it had darkened. When I painted it, the 
original had already assumed a darker tone; the violet tint 
had disappeared ; it had got its right effect, or nearly so. To 
copy what I saw, I had to match the tones of the original, 
which had already darkened and blackened, so mine had, of 
course, darkened still more.” 


I saw Amaury-Duval’s copy at the house of 
Madame Léon Say, Armand Bertin’s daughter. 
This was five or six years ago, and the picture 
struck me as dark and gloomy. It has continued 
to darken. 

The evaporation of the lakes of which Amaury- 
Duval speaks is shown in the Louvre portrait by a 
discord between the cheek in the light, which has 
become pale, and the cheek in shadow, which, on 
the contrary, seems to have become stronger in 
tone, either because the vermilion used has darkened, 
or because the ground has come through the 
painting, which is thinner in the shadows. 

164 


INGRES’ PORTRAIT OF BERTIN 
ee 

I showed this picture to Dinet. He was not 
much struck by the discord between the right and 
the left cheek. But when I further pointed out to 
him the exaggerated brilliance of the white cravat, 
which is not really in harmony with its surround- 
ings ; when, moreover, I showed him in one of the 
hands a strong light on the little finger, which, with 
the cravat, is the lightest, and also the most loaded 
passage in the picture, he began to think that it 
must have darkened considerably. He believes 
that Ingres painted on a gray priming. This 
priming, which he covered too thinly, must have 
come through everywhere, except in the two places 
where the impasto is thickest—the cravat and the 
finger. This explains the discord of the cheeks. 
The light cheek has devoured the lakes and grown 
pale, darkening less because of the larger dose 
of white, whereas the cheek in shadow, with its 
thinner impasto, has been affected by the priming, 
and perhaps also by a vermilion, used instead of 
lake.* As zinc white does not destroy madder, it 
may be employed for mixtures of madder and 
white ; unfortunately this white, which dries very 
slowly, is unpleasant to use. 

Dinet gives me this receipt: one-third _ of 
vermilion to two-thirds of madder. If madder 
becomes pale by evaporation, vermilion, on the 
contrary, darkens under the influence of light; the 
brilliance and freshness will diminish, but the value 
will not suffer. 

A red drapery might be painted with vermilion 

* I was speaking of this portrait not long ago to Mons. Carolus Duran. He 
also had noticed the darkening of the cheek in the shadow, but he attributes it 


more to Ingres’ method of painting than to the presence of vermilion. The 
colour is rubbed on thinly without freedom or solidity. 


105 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


and glazed with madder. The chemical rays of 
light will be arrested by the glaze, and will not 
easily reach the vermilion, which will thus be pre- 
vented from darkening. 

Bad reds should all be avoided ; even if carefully 
manufactured, they are still bad. 


Yellows. 


Yellows owe much to the progress of modern 
chemistry. Cadmiums and chromes are brilliant 
yellows, rich and splendid, of which the past knew 
nothing. Until the beginning of the nineteenth 
century painters used, for these vivid tints, orpiment 
or orpine, which the Romans called auripigmentum 
gold colour), a sulphate of arsenic which will not 
mix with any colour having a basis of lead, and 
consequently will not amalgamate with white lead. 
However, the durability of our modern yellows 
must be put to the proof. 


TABLE OF YELLOWS. 


VERY DURABLE,| DURABLE, BUT 


VERY TO BE 
Led A aap BUT SHOULD | SHOULD BE Posey 
BE TESTED. TESTED. 
Mars yellow | Deep cad- | Naples Jaune brilliant 
mium yellow Light chrome 
Middle Ultramarine yellow 
cadmium vellow Middle chrome 
Strontian Lemon yellow] yellow 
yellow Chrome Green Naples 
Yellow ochre| orange yellow 
Aureolin Chromate Yellow lake 
Indian of zinc Gaude lake 
yellow Gamboge 


166 


YELLOWS 


Cadmium.—lIf well washed, cadmiums are very 
solid. Dinet assures me they will stand exposure 
to the sun for eighteen months, even if mixed with 
white lead. But a badly prepared cadmium 
darkens. Painters should test them before using 
them. It is only the light lemon tints, which 
contain an excess of sulphur, which should be 
rejected. 

Artists should not therefore continue to distrust 
cadmium, though it is generally distrusted in studios. 
But it is absolutely necessary to keep it away from 
Veronese green, or arseniate of copper. The result 
of contact with this is disastrous; the beautiful 
brilliance at first obtained fades, the tone turns to 
positive black, even if the cadmium be excellent. 
Indeed, all products of copper should be kept from 
it; and therefore it is prudent not to have dippers 
with metal covers on the palette when cadmium 1s 
being used. 

Strontian Yellow.—lf well prepared, this is very 
durable. It takes the place of pale cadmium, 
and does not affect any other colour, not even 
Veronese green. But it should be tested, because, 
if badly prepared, it turns, even when pure, to a 
greenish tone. 

Indian Yellow.—A good colour, durable even 
when mixed with others. But the alkaline prin- 
ciples it contains form, when combined with oil, a 
product which is soluble in water. The slightest 
washing will dissolve it like a soap. Dinet recom- 
mends that it should be mixed with a little varnish, 
and carefully varnished over. Thus protected, it 
defies damp. 

Mars Yellow.—A good colour, and durable. it 

167 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
eeeeeesesSsSsSSsSSSSSFSFSFSMsSsSsS 
doesnot affect other colours. Itis unnecessary totest 
this, unless there is reason to suspect adulteration. 

Yellow Ochre.-—Yellow ochre enjoys a reputa- 
tion for solidity which is not always justified, 
because it requires very careful washing. If well 
prepared, and cleansed from all impurities, it 
becomes absolutely permanent, and does not affect 
any colour with which it may be mixed. Ingres 
said: ‘* Yellow ochre is a heaven-sent pigment.” 

All other yellows are doubtful or bad. 


Greens. 

Emerald Green.—Emerald green is one of the 
most beautiful and durable colours which painting 
owes to modern science. It is unchangeable, both 
when pure and in mixture, dries well, and can be 
used thick or as a glaze. Mixed with stron- 
tian yellow, it is almost a perfect substitute for 
Veronese green, the use of which is full of danger. 


eRre«‘’j‘esaosa0aeaaoaoaoaoaoaoaoaee 


TABLE OF GREENS. 
tS ES ee 


DURABLE, BUT 


VERY TO BE USED | DOUBTFUL, TO TO BE 
DURABLE. WITH BE TESTED. AVOIDED, 
GREAT CARE, 

Emerald green Veronese Cobalt green | Terre verte 
(oxide of green Malachite Mineral 
hydrated green green 
chromium) English Verdigris 

Chrome green emerald 
(oxide of green 
chromium) (aceto- 

arsenite 
of copper) 


168 


BLUES 

Chrome Gyveen.— Chrome green, as durable 
though less brilliant, may be used with advantage 
as a substitute for terre verte, which is a bad 
colour. Chrome green is sometimes counterfeited 
by a mixture of chrome yellow and Prussian blue. 

Veronese Green.—Veronese green is suspect. 
When it is used, everything else must be feared. 
The smallest trace of sulphur turns it black. 
Before using it, palettes, brushes and cups should 
be cleaned with the utmost care. It is, however, 
capable of certain admixtures ; it stands well when 
mixed with strontian yellow, cobalt, and white lead. 
It is also quite durable when used pure. It should 
always be varnished. 

Cadmium, vermilion and ultramarineaffect it most 
markedly. Zinc white may also attack it. 

Terre Verte.—Terre verte has little body. It is 
sometimes used for blocking in. The Primitives 
used it for this purpose, but they painted with ego; 
used with oil, terre verte causes the colours laid 
over it to crack. Rubens used it as a glaze on 
flesh—in his dead Christs, for instance, where it 
seems to have darkened. Yet Meissonier, whose 
painting seems very solid, used terre verte, 
Girardot tells me. I also remember that Dagnan 
spoke to me one day of a portrait he had blocked in 
entirely in a monochrome of terre verte. 


Blues. 

Cobalt Blue.—An excellent colour due to 
modern chemistry ; it will bear all admixtures and 
all processes, may be used pure, as a glaze, etc. 

Mérimée says that in 1802 cobalt blue was 
discovered by Thénard, whom the Minister of the 
169 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


Interior, the Comte de Chaptal, had commissioned 
“to acquaint himself with the requirements of 
painters and make useful researches bearing on the 
improvement of colours.” 


RR a TN EO INE SNA A RECTAL T SASS Caper 


TABLE OF BLUES. 


VERY DURABLE, BUT 
DURABLE. TO BE TEsTED.| POUBTFUL. ait 
Cobalt blue | French Prussian blue |Indigo (a vege- 
Cerulean blue} Ultramarine table colour) 
Lapis lazuli, Blue verditer 
or genuine Sky blue 
Ultramarine Antique blue 


French Ultramarine.—This must be manu- 
factured with care, for it becomes gray and 
deteriorates when mixed with white lead, if it 
contains too much sulphur. as 

In 1814 some pieces of earthenware from a fur- 
nace used for manufacturing soda were brought to 
Vauquelin. They were coloured a very bright blue 
resembling ultramarine. The Société d’Encourage- 
ment offered a prize of 6,000 francs to the chemist 
who should succeed in producing an artificial 
ultramarine similar to that obtained from lazulite 
or lapis lazuli. 

The pieces of pottery brought to Vauquelin 
encouraged hopes of such a result, and, indeed, 
Guimet, a former pupil of the Ecole Polytechnique, 
succeeded in manufacturing the artificial ultra- 
marine which bears his name in France, and is 
called in England French Ultramarine. 

170 


VIOLETS AND BROWNS 


Prussian Blue-—Prussian blue is affected by air 
and light. The air turns it green and the sun 
robs it of colour. If it has faded in the light, it 
may regain its intensity if placed in the dark. 
Ground in oil and varnished, it does not fade so 
quickly, but also, when it does fade, it 1s less easy 
to restore. 

The way to make Prussian blue was discovered 
accidentally in 1704. Mérimée tells the story :— 

“The name of this colour comes from the place where a 
chance led to its discovery. In 1704, a manufacturer of lakes 
named Diesback, wishing to precipitate a solution of alum to 
prepare the white body, that is to say, the alumina, the base 
of the lake, which he proposed afterwards to colour with a 
decoction of cochineal, used some potash given him by Dippel, 
with which this chemist had made several rectifications of 
animal oil. To the great astonishment of the manufacturer, 
the precipitate, which should have been white, was blue.”* 


Violets. 


TABLE OF VIOLETS. 


VERY DURABLE, 


Mineral violet All aniline colours 
Mars violet 
~ Cobalt violet 


Browns. 

Paul Dubois, in painting his portraits, used a 
great deal of umber, which he often mixed with 
lake for his backgrounds. 


* Mérimée, De la Peinture a Thuile, 1830. Dippel, after hearing of the 
result, studied the circumstances which had led up to this phenomenon and 
succeeded in repeating it. 

171 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
Sl sss 


TABLE OF BROWNS. 
pe 


DURABLE, BUT 


VERY DURABLE, BAD. 
SHOULD BE TESTED. 

Mars brown Prussian brown | Bitumen 
Cappagh brown Raw Siena Mummy 
Verona brown Ochre of ru Bistre 
Burnt Siena Golden ochre Van Dyck brown 
Mars orange Brown ochre Brussels brown 
Transparent brown| Raw umber Cassel earth 
Vibert brown Burnt umber Cologne earth 
Sepia (used only in Brown madder 


water-colour) 


Cassel earth mixed with white darkens and 
cracks. It also fades under the action of light. 

Merimée writes :— 

“IT remember once seeing a head, the brown hair of 
which had been painted with Cassel earth; after a few 
years, the light parts, the reflections on the hair, which had 
been painted with a mixture of white, were darker than the 
shadows painted in the pure Cassel. The mixture of white 
had fixed the bituminous earth.”* 

Bitumen acts upon whites, upon madder, and 
upon all the light colours; its oily parts rise to the 
surface, travel about among the modelling, spread 
themselves in a brown glaze, andform spots. Asit 
never gets properly hard and is susceptible to heat, 
itruns. Its evil propensities are not neutralised 
even when it can be got to dry by means of a 
siccative. It will not run then, but it will crack, 
splitting the painting to which it belongs, affecting 
the layers that cover it, and producing crevasses 
sometimes several centimetreslong. In our chapter 


* Mérimée, De la Peinture a Phuile, 1830. 
. 72 


PERMANENCY OF MODERN COLOURS 


on the history of processes we have seen what 
disastrous use painters made of it at the beginning 
of the nineteenth century, and its ravages were de- 
scribed in dealing with the different kinds of cracks. 

I have heard Bouguereau assert that bitumen 
may be sately used, if it is employed only for super- 
ficial touches and not in the depths and in under- 
painting. I could not argue the point frankly 
with the old artist, or I might have told him, first 
that he could not say how his bitumen was going 
to behave in the future,* and above all, that it 
has given his pictures an empty, vulgar, and 
viscous appearance, which would be in_ itself 
enough to condemn it. 

Mummy gives results which are almost as bad. 


Blacks. 

Ivory black, vine and peach black, and the 
black of burnt bones can all withstand the action 
of the light. But as they dry badly, they crack 
when varnished too soon. Itis a good plan to mix 
a little Courtray (Strong Drying Oil) with them. 
Girardot considers peach black better than ivory 
black, which, he says, darkens when mixed with 
white. 

Finally, to sum up, we may say that in the old 
days, painters possessed but one solid colour, the 
blue of lapis lazuli, whereas now all the brilliant 
colours may be so prepared as to be absolutely 
durable, with the exception of madder. ‘The others, 
when prepared by a good manufacturer, may be 
used without fear, and we know now how to test 
them, if their origin makes us suspicious. ° 


* Used as Bouguereau recommended, there is a danger of its cracking the 
varnish above it, Dinet tells me. 
173 


as 


THE PRESERVATION OF 
RAGS GPG he 


CARE OF PICTURES, RESTORATION, FORGERIES 


‘* The great painters would recoil at the sight of their 
masterpieces,”"— Stendhal, 


Care of Pictures. 


The picture is finished and varnished; it has 
been executed under the best conditions as regards 
materials and methods of defence; it is protected 
against its enemies. Most people, the painter 
included, think that they have no further duties to 
fulfil. It is hung up, and provided they remember 
to look at it occasionally, and to call upon their 
friends to admire it, they think they have shown it 
all necessary attention. It is placed, perhaps, 
amongst cabinets, furniture, and mirrors, which are 
dusted and cleaned very frequently. But no care 
of this kind is bestowed upon the picture. Servants 
flick the varnish and the frame occasionally with 
a feather brush or still worse, perhaps, with the 
duster which has been collecting the dirt of all the 
furniture in the room. And that is all. This 
careless dusting is in itself destructive. It makes 
the surface dirty, and there is danger that the 
feather brush may scratch it. But the homage of 
admirers is even more disastrous. Imitating a 
gesture common in studios, which all amateurs 


175 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
Se 
choose, absurdly enough, to adopt, they point out 
passages they admire by a little circular sweep of 
the finger tips; this action, performed close to the 
picture, very often involves scratches from the 
finger-nails. Sometimes (and here painters are 
the worst offenders, for the action has become 
almost mechanical with many of them) they rub 
the admired passage with a finger moistened with 
saliva. They want to make it brilliant. Alas! the 
permanent effect is just the opposite, though the 
tone may be heightened for the moment. As out 
of ten persons, five are probably smokers, this 
solution of nicotine has the most disastrous effects. 
The admired passage droops like a child who has 
been overpowered by caresses. It takes on a blue 
tint, and bloom appears. If the picture has been 
admired in this fashion all over, one may imagine 
the result. 

A picture requires constant supervision. It isa 
mistake to suppose that it is all right as long as 
it is not actively injured. A thousand dangers 
threaten it—light, dust, gas, careless and clumsy 
admirers, heat, cold, damp, darkness, flies, and even 
too much energy in cleansing, for this is more 
often the cause of deterioration and damage than 
anything else. 

Like every other creature threatened with illness 
or accidents, the picture should be the object of 
preventive measures. A hygiene must be observed, 
and this hygiene will suffice if it is not instituted 
too late. We have seen how this is necessary in 
the case of varnish ; it is equally necessary for the 
whole picture. 

The heat of the sun will dry a picture very well, 

176 


CARE OF PICTURES 


but when it is dry, certain of its colours are 
adversely affected by the chemical rays of light. A 
picture should be hung in a moderate light, though 
not in too dark a place, and it should be sheltered 
from the direct rays of the sun. 

The evils of damp are so much to be dreaded 
that an inner wall should be chosen. The proximity 
of a radiator or of a window should be avoided, 
because the damp outside air and strong heat will 
both affect the varnish. 

Electric light will not harm a picture, but it 
should never be hung in a room lighted by gas, 
without the protection of a glass. The products of 
the combustion of gas contain sulphurous matter. 
This, which corrodes textiles, book-bindings, etc., 
is even more disastrous to paint. 

A dwelling, of course, cannot be chosen solely 
with a view to hanging pictures in it, but in building 
a museum certain precautions are imperative. A 
site should be chosen which is safe, high, suffi- 
ciently remote from the damp of rivers, canals, 
drains, the emanations of factories and their smoke, 
and above all, from gas-works. There should be 
cellars under the building. The walls on which 
the pictures are hung should be inner walls, with 
exterior walls at some distance from them, which 
will prevent the outside temperature from acting 
upon the inner rooms and the walls assigned to 
the pictures. There should be no lavatories inside 
the building. In the galleries, where the floors 
should be of polished parquet, stoves should not 
be admitted, because of the dust and the carbonic 
and sulphurous gases they give out, nor hot- 
water heating, because of the damp it exhales, 


P. 177 N 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


Hot-air pipes should be laid under the floors in the 
middle of the galleries. A system of ventilation 
adapted to the height of the rooms, and ensured 
by ventilators which carry off the damp air due 
to crowds of visitors, will make it possible to 
maintain an equal warmth, and also to disperse 
the dust after cleaning. 

The light which falls from the glazed ceiling 
should filter through ground glass or a white velum. 

The galleries must be kept at as even a tempera- 
ture as possible, for we know how susceptible 
varnishes are to alternations of heat and damp. 
To facilitate the regulation of this temperature, 
there should be a thermometer and a hygrometer 
in each room. The mean temperature should be 
in summer from 18° to 22° C. (65° to 72° F.), and 
in winter from 15° to 18° C. (60° to 65° F.). 

The winter temperature must be lower than that 
of summer because the prolonged heat of a radiator 
dries the atmosphere and affects panels. 

Such minute precautions will not appear exces- 
sive in the case of objects so rare, fragile, and 
precious as fine pictures. 

Blockx’ Compendium makes a very useful sug- 
gestion in this connection. It advises that the 
curators of museums should have the causes of 
the deterioration of pictures explained to them. 

‘Even the most indifferent of men,” says the 
author, ‘“‘ becomes attached to the objects amongst 
which he spends his life. This truth applies to 
the curators of museums. Devoted and faithful 
servants, they very often feel a kind of religious 
reverence for the pictures under their care. By 
making them understand that their zeal plays a 

178 


CARE OF PICTURES 


considerable part in the preservation of these 
masterpieces, we stimulate their self-esteem, and 
they will take a pride in carrying out the instruc- 
tions they receive.”’ 

The precautions to be taken for the preservation 
of old pictures may be summed up thus: The 
painting must be protected from direct contact 
with the air, and must not be exposed to very 
strong light. 

As to modern pictures, not yet varnished, they 
must not be deprived either of air or light. The 
oil requires both until it is perfectly dry, or it 
will turn sour and rancid and the colour will 
suffer. 

A damp, ill-lighted room will make the oil sour 
and give the colours a dull, heavy, sticky appear- 
ance. We know all this, so I need say no more 
on this head. 

The simplest and most elementary process in 
the care of pictures consists in wiping them to keep 
them free from dust. 

Once a month, every picture should be dusted 
with a silk handkerchief, and then gently rubbed 
with a soft chamois leather, which should be 
used for nothing else. 

If the picture has not yet been varnished, and if 
a sojourn in some dark, damp place has made it 
yellow and dirty, it must be washed over with clear 
rain-water and rubbed with a piece of raw potato to 
remove the grease ; it should then be hung in the 
open air, or in a very light room, but not exposed 
to the direct rays of the sun. If the yellowish 
appearance still persists at the end of a week, it 
must be washed again with diluted oxygenised 


179 Nez 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
ne ch 
water, then rinsed with rain-water, and wiped with 
a chamois leather. 

If a picture, the varnish of which is intact, but 
superficially soiled by dust, smoke, and the excretions 
of flies, has to be cleaned, eau flamande may be 
used. This must be applied with a sponge drawn 
slowly over the surface. After a few seconds, the 
picture should be rinsed with another sponge 
dipped in clear water, which should be carefully 
changed. It should be wiped with a clean rag, 
dried in the air, and gently rubbed over with a 
chamois leather. 

If the eau flamande is not sufficient—and this 
is sometimes the case with old pictures—a special 
soap must be used; the common soaps are most 
dangerous. A pure white soap, or one of the 
medicinal soaps sold by all chemists should be tried, 
the former for very tenacious stains, the latter for 
less obstinate disfigurements. Two sponges must 
again be used; with one the soap is rubbed lightly 
on the picture, with the other it is wiped off. Very 
little water should be used in the second process, or 
it might soak through the varnish. If possible, 
therefore, this operation should be performed in the 
summer, in fine weather and in a place free from 
dust. The picture must then be wiped witha clean 
white rag. If it does not dry quickly, too much 
water has been used. In this case the picture 
must be placed in a draught for an hourortwo. If 
bloom makes its appearance in spite of these 
precautions, the surface should be rubbed gently 
with a chamois leather. 

A picture in good condition should be cleaned 
with cau flamande about every two years. 

180 


EVIL EFFECTS OF EGG-VARNISH 


The use of white of egg, as a temporary varnish 
or to revive old varnish, though very popular in 
studios and amongst collectors and photographers, 
cannot be too strongly condemned. 

“We cannot,” writes Dinet, ‘‘ warn artists and 
collectors too earnestly against the dangers of white 
of egg, with which many photographers have the 
disastrous habit of smearing any canvas entrusted 
to them for reproduction. There is no possible 
excuse for this practice. 


“Tf the picture is already varnished, this sinister varnish 
will diminish its transparence, and if the artist has preferred 
to leave his picture mat (without gloss), the operation will 
bring out spots very injurious to the desired effect. 

“But whether the picture is varnished, or is to be varnished 
later, the after consequences will be fatal and irreparable. 

“Albumen is extremely sensitive to damp. If it is not. 
removed, it decomposes the varnish on or under which it may 
be, causing it to take on a bluish tone, and if attempts are 
made to take off the albumen, which can never be completely 
removed, the soapy water used for the purpose will be an 
additional danger. 

“A picture on which there are traces of albumen and soap 
can never be properly varnished. 

“Collectors and artists who entrust their pictures to 
photcgraphers should make them promise not to apply any of 
their fatal preparations. 

“‘T have had personal experience of an unhappy picture which 
came back from a photographer covered with a thick layer of 
black mess insoluble in water or in spirits of turpentine. Spirit 
of petroleum was the only thing to which it yielded, after a day’s 
work upon it. But in a few days, the acids of the grease, the 
nature of which I could never get the photographer to reveal, 
had attacked the varnish, which I had compounded with the 
greatest care, a varnish of gum copal which would have 
resisted rain and sun for two years. 

“The catastrophe brought about by another photographer in 
his treatment of a celebrated tempera picture by Burne-Jones is 


ISI 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
SSS SSS SS SSeS SSCS 


familiar to the art-world. He had applied the famous layer of 
albumen, and when he proceeded to remove it with the equally 
famous soap and water, he took off all the tempera too, this 
being soluble in water, and had to pay a heavy sum as 
compensation, Fortunately for him, Burne-Jones was still 
alive, 


Let us now take the case of a varnished picture, 

the colour of which has sunk. 
_ Two causes might produce this effect: either 
the original varnish was too thinly applied, and 
in this case it will suffice to re-varnish carefully ; 
or the dull appearance is due to the varnish 
having perished. If this is the case, it will have 
acquired a dark-brown tone. To put a second 
coat over this unhealthy varnish would be danger- 
ous; it would infect the new layer with its disease, 
and this would decompose in its turn. We are 
confronted with the necessity of removing the 
varnish, 

The removal of varnish is one of the most 
serious operations a picture can undergo. Restorers 
themselves admit this at present; but unfortunately, 
they were not always of this opinion, and too 
many imprudent operations have done irreparable 
damage to master-pieces which will never regain 
the beauty they possessed, even under their perished 
varnish, 

Lebrun, the husband of Mme. Vigée-Lebrun, 
knew this, even in his day. He wrote as 
follows :— 


“ More pictures are destroyed by cleaning than by any other 
means ; it is unquestionably the most dangerous of operations, 
because it is undertaken by all and sundry. Some suppose 


* Dinet, Les Fléoux de la Peinture, 


182 


REMOVAL OF OLD V ARNISHES 


themselves skilful enough to attempt it, and sacrifice master- 
pieces to their ignorant presumption; others boast of having 
secrets,” 


This is what Dinet writes. I cannot do better 
than quote him at length :— 


«A picture has disappeared completely under a dark layer 
of opaque varnish; large fissures disfigure it in every direction, 
and even important fragments have scaled off the canvas. 

“What is to be done? Should we be content to rely upon 
our imagination, and attempt to re-construct the master-piece 
by a mental process, or should we try to lift the heavy veil of 
varnish and repair the ravages that have disfigured it? ‘These 
are questions which are hotly debated, and opinions are 
greatly divided on the subject. 

“Some maintain that no profane hand should be allowed to 
touch either the work of a master or the unhappy modifica- 
tions wrought by time. Others, that a work famous for its 
freshness and brilliance ought not to be presented to us veiled 
by a coating of tar, and that those who profess to admire it. 
in this state cannot be sincere. 

“To those who consider the slightest re-touch on the 
smokiest and most damaged old master a sacrilege, we might 
say: 

“‘If our ancestors had been so scrupulous, none of the old 
pictures in our museums would be visible to-day. Certain 
canvases already invisible in Vasari’s time have been restored 
_ to the light of modern day, and those which are most admired 
for their fine preservation have had the varnish removed, have 
been re-touched more or less skilfully several times, and have 
been transferred in most cases. 

“Tt is highly instructive to look through the catalogues of 
the royal collections, which were the nucleus of the Louvre. 
They give in detail the expenditure in the eighteenth century 
on the restoration of all the master-pieces we now admire, the 
cost of ultramarine for glazing Rubens’ draperies, etc. . 
We may well ask ourselves how we are to discover something 
of the individual style of each master under these re-paintings. 

“An exaggerated admiration for the dark tone givento pictures 
by varnish has facilitated the fabrication of ‘old’ pictures, 
and the re-painting that dishonours too many master-pieces, 


183 


w 


% 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
——— eee 


“The crudities of the forger and the inexperienced restorer 
are easily disguised under a layer of brown varnish, an 
imitation of the beautiful amber varnishes mellowed by time. 

“To those, on the other hand, who hope to bring back the 
- original freshness of a picture, we may say : It is more difficult 
to remove a varnish without damaging the painting beneath it 
than itis to skin a living person without making him bleed. The 
restorer will have to be called in to dress these wounds, and 
the ravages wrought by time are less disastrous than those 
caused by the hand of an imprudent physician. 

“This is, indeed, the crux of the whole matter. Ifthe varnish 
could be removed from pictures without damage to them, a 
feat successfully accomplished in the case of certain Primitive 
masters whose pictures have an absolutely smooth surface, the 
question would be a very simple one. 

“In spite of our weakness for the amber tone which years 
produce in certain varnishes, we should not hesitate to have 
them removed when they became dark, 

“This warm patina would not take long to form again, for 
the perfect age of a picture or a varnish is, iN my opinion, from 
fifty to sixty years. Time has then laid its glamour on it, and 
has not yet begun its work of destruction. 

“Unfortunately, most pictures bear the operation very badly. 
The glazes are taken off together with the varnishes; the 
loaded passages are reduced, and in the hollows the decom- 
posed resins, which remain untouched, form black ravines, the 
more painful to the eye because the half-tones have become 
lighter. 

“I may take the case of a portrait by Rembrandt from 
which the varnish was removed. ‘The nose, which had been 
painted with a loaded brush, had been rubbed down till it 
looked like a nose pressed against a window-pane, whereas 
round the touches which represented the nostrils, black crevices, 
filled with the resinous dirt it had been impossible to get at, 
suggested the shadows cast on a face by a cardboard nose. 

“Lastly, the rubbing nearly always detaches some pieces of 
the painting which no longer adhere very firmly to the support. 

“When the remover of the varnish has done his work, the 
restorer is a necessary consequence.” 


But before we go on to the restorer, let us see the 
remover of varnish at work. 
184 


Of I MPASTO 


LOADING 


EXTRAVAGANT 


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ew SON. 
a ; 
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SERVANT 


THE OLD 


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bv R. P. BONINGTON. (The Louvre.) 


Preservation difficult, removal of varnish impossible 


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, ant » ’ * st 
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5 | 
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: - - - 2 4 ’ J 4 - _— 
7 * > re ~~ ee tee —— 4 


REMOVAL OF VARNISH BY FRICTION 


The first method used, the simplest, the most 
prudent, and the most ancient, is that of reducing 
the resin to powder by prolonged rubbing of the 
finger on the varnish. One finger is used at first, 
then two, or all the fingers, or even the whole hand 
on a large picture. 

The friction is kept up with a circular motion 
until the varnish whitens and turns to powder. 
When this powder begins to impede the operation, 
and prevents the operator from seeing the painting, 
itis removed. As soon as he feels that the varnish 
has all crumbled, he stops. 

This method of removing varnish can only be 
practised on smooth, even pictures, painted on 
copper, panel, or a well-stretched canvas. On a 
badly stretched canvas, or a picture in which the 
impasto is full of inequalities, the cavities between . 
the ridges of paint escape from the work of the 
fingers ; recourse must therefore be had to spirits of 
wine mixed with an equal quantity of spirits of 
turpentine. 

The quantity of turpentine must, however, be 
modified in proportion to the thickness of the 
varnish, that is to say, that the proportion of spirits 
of wine must be greater when the varnish 1s thicker. 
Great care must be exercised. On the right of the ~ 
picture should be a vessel containing the spirits of 
wine and the essence of turpentine, and on the left, 
another filled with pure turpentine. A sponge, a 
wad of cotton-wool, a piece of fine linen, or a mop 
of tow, if the picture is a very large one, is used to 
apply the mixture lightly to the varnish. As soon 
as the operator finds, by touching the varnish with 
his finger, that it is giving, the biting is checked by 

185 


a7 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
nee a 
passing cotton-wool dipped in spirit of turpentine 
over the varnish. When evaporation has taken 
place, the varnish should be examined, and the 
operation should be continued if necessary. 

The wad used should be carefully examined at 
intervals, to make sure that the solvent has not 
attacked the painting. 

A mixture of spirits of wine, spirit of tur- 
pentine, and oil may also be used. In this case, 
the action of the solvent may be checked by rubbing 
lightly with oil. 

Generally speaking, it is best to begin with the 
least delicate parts of a picture, such as dark 
draperies, accessories, the ground. The sky, the 
carnations, and faces should be left until it is 
possible to form an opinion as to the nature of the 
varnish, and the results to be hoped for. 

The operation, as I have said, is fraught with the 
utmost danger. I give the receipt rather for the 
information of the curious than to encourage the 
practice. There are pictures which could not 
undergo this friction without losing all their charm 
and all their value. When pictures have been 
painted in glazes and scumbles, these disappear 
entirely with the varnish. When attacked by spirits 
of wine, or even by the finger in the simpler process, 
they come away with the old varnish to which they 
adhere. Now as soon as we touch a picture earlier 
than the school of David, we find ourselves con- 
fronted by pictures finished more or less with glazes 
and scumbles. 

As the under layers of a varnish generally dete- 
riorate less than the upper ones, it may sometimes 
be possible to remove the varnish partially, leaving 

186 


REMOVAL OF VARNISH WITH ALCOHOL 


a thin skin very evenly laid alike over the loaded 
passages and over the depressions. This not only 
preserves the glazes and scumbles, but also the 
old varnish, the golden tone of which, it must be 
admitted, is very attractive. People do not always 
realise how much this contributes to the general 
effect of an old picture. 

Only a restorer could carry out this operation 
successfully. 

But when the varnish has perished, the only 
remedy is to remove it, for, as we have seen, the 
disease of the old varnish will communicate itself to 
the new, and the result of a new layer would be to 
draw a blacker and thicker veil over the painting. 

The removal of varnish with spirits of wine has 
been effected in various ways. 

When Rembrandt’s Night-Watch was cleaned, 
the picture was laid over a bath of alcohol, that 
is to say, on a vast receptacle of the same dimen- 
sions as the picture, filled with spirits of wine. The 
evaporations attacked the varnish, and gradually 
removed it. But this process does not allow the 
operator to watch the progress of his work. When 
he is manipulating the picture, he can stop directly 
he gets down to the painting, whereas the action of 
the bath is extended equally over the whole sur- 
face, and goes on without allowing the restorer 
to superintend its progress, and intervene, if 
necessary. 

We are assured that the Night-Watch, so far 
from suffering in the process, has gained immeasur- 
ably in brilliance. But has it also retained all the 
delicate last touches Rembrandt bestowed upon it? 
This we shall never know, and everything would 

187 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
—— 
lead to the conclusion that it has not. Hence, in 
France, the removal of varnish by the means 
described finds little favour. 

Mons. Durandeau, the restorer attached to the 
Palace of Versailles, has invented an apparatus, 
the excellent effects of which I have myself wit- 
nessed. It should prove of the greatest service in 
these operations. | 

This apparatus enables the operator to preserve 
the patina of old pictures; it restores varnishes 
that have bloomed or cracked, and fills up cracks, 
making them disappear entirely. The advantages 
as we see, are considerable. 

Pictures entrusted to Mons. Durandeau run no 
risk of losing glazes, loaded passages, or patina. 
I have seen pictures before and after the operation. 
The results were amazing. 

Mons. Durandeau and Mons. Nolhac, the 
Director of the Museum of Versailles, also 
allowed me to photograph an example of a 
disintegrated varnish which was restored in less 
than an hour; the photographer took longer over 
his work than the restorer. 

This process offers, as far as varnish is con- 
cerned, the most normal solution—that of preserving 
the picture as the artist painted it, and as time has 
completed it. 

Finally, we have to consider the case of a dirty 
varnish buried under additional coats of varnish. 
The dirt that is imprisoned between the affected 
layers of varnish demands their removal. But even 
in circumstances of this kind Mons. Durandeau is of 
opinion that the lower layer of varnish should be 
respected, or at least the last skin of this varnish 

188 


WAX ‘AS A VARNISH 


the one in contact with the painting. His invention 
enables him to restore the health of this first 
varnish, and to give it a fresh coat if the stratum 
that remains seems too thin. 

Taking into account the damage caused by the 
protecting varnish, we may be inclined to ask if it 
would not be better to renounce such doubtful pro- 
tection altogether. But this would be a serious 
mistake. Certain colours which are perfectly solid 
under varnish deteriorate hopelessly under direct 
contact with the air and the action of its gases. 

But would it not be possible to find some protec- 
tion other than a resinous varnish? Attempts have 
been made to find a substitute, but without success. 
The only one still in use, white of egg, is inefficient, 
and has the most serious disadvantages. As we 
know, it absorbs the moisture in the air; in dry 
weather it contracts and causes the painting to 
split. It lacks the good qualities of resinous 
varnishes, and has defects even more serious. 

Wax is the only material which has always been 
found to protect painting so efficiently as to make 
it in some ways preferable to resinous varnishes. 

If a thin layer of wax is spread over an oil paint- 
ing, it gives it the dull appearance of distemper ; 
but if we rub the surface lightly with a wad of 
cotton-wool, it assumes the brilliance of a varnish. 
It never causes the painting to crack, and it pre- 
serves it better than resins, for it is unaffected by 
acids. Finally, although it yellows a little in time, 
this change is imperceptible, whereas the darkening 
of resins ends by making the picture invisible. 

Paintings executed with wax in Egypt, Greece, 
and Italy have come down to us so fresh that they 

189 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING — 


look as if they had been painted yesterday. This 
phenomenon has been duly noted, and at all periods 
efforts have been made to revive its use and to dis- 
cover the exact methods used by the ancients. We 
have seen that the Comte de Caylus undertook a 
long course of study to inquire into the process, 
and that Baron von Taubenheim mixed wax with 
ordinary oil-colours. This facilitated execution, 
but as wax will not amalgamate with oil, the 
adhesion. of the various coats of colour was not 
perfect. One of Taubenheim’s pupils conceived 
the idea of laying a coat of the wax prepared by his 
master over an old picture which had sunk and was 
beginning to decay. He was astonished at the 
result. “The wax,” he said, “ replaced the ‘ saps’ 
of the painting, which had disappeared in the 
process of desiccation,” and restored the original 
suppleness and transparence of the picture. - 

Dinet says that if this kind of protection had been 
applied from the first beginnings of oil-painting, or 
even from the eighteenth century, at the time of 
Taubenheim’s experiments, many pictures by the 
old masters would have been saved, which are now 
almost entirely painted over by restorers ; we should 
have been able to admire them almost as they left the 
hands of their authors. We shall see presently why. 

A distinguished restorer, Mons. Albert Jehn, con- 
vinced of the services wax might render, has lately 
compounded, with the help of certain new solvents, 
a series of wax preparations which enablethe restora- 
tion of pictures to be carried out to perfection, and 
their future preservation to be ensured. 

All the cleaning processes now adopted destroy 
the few “saps” that remain in the colour, and 

Igo 


——— 2 


ee 


Se ee es 


WAX AS A VARNISH 


sit aaa ts 


replace them by superficial resinous varnish, which 
renders it more brittle than before. The new pro- 
cess, on the other hand, introduces into the pores 
of the paint a supple and transparent “sap” 
much more durable than the oil which has perished, 
carbonised, or disappeared; this is wax. It even 
has the further quality of protecting the patina, 
when it is desirable to retain this, for it penetrates 
the usual varnishes, those which are prepared 
neither with spirits of wine nor _ shellac—both 
deleterious, as we have seen—and restores a 
certain elasticity to them also. Finally—and this 
is a truly remarkable advantage—the high tones 
regain their brilliance in an extraordinary manner, 
and colours which have disappeared for reasons 
other than their susceptibility to the action of light, 
colours which the removal of dirt and varnish has 
failed to revive, re-appear in all their pristine fresh- 
ness. As the wax penetrates into the cavities left 
by the retreat of the oil, the light acts upon the 
colouring powder just as when the painting was 
new. Mons. Jehn give a scientific explanation of 
this phenomenon which seems plausible, and he is 
to make it the subject of a communication to the 
Académie des Sciences. 

The results obtained by Mons. Jehn are indis- 
putable, and his process should do much to facilitate 
the preservation of pictures. As he intends to offer 
his invention to the public, it may be useful to sum 
up the advantages of this new product. 

1. As wax dissolves all dirt, and is afterwards 
easily removed together with this, it will be possible 
to clean the roughest and most loaded impasto 
without rubbing it smooth. This in particular 


IgI 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


should prove the salvation of our Impressionist 
school. Its bristling impasto seemed to doom it 
to early destruction. It would have been impossible 
to clean these pictures or to remove their varnish, 
and, if they had been left unvarnished, they would, 
as we have seen, have been defenceless against 
the injurious elements of the atmosphere. 

2. It will be possible to clean a picture and give it 
back its freshness and suppleness without removing 
the patina, provided that all the varnish is resinous. 

3. The painting may be perfectly preserved by 
the use of this wax, which, when lightly applied, 
produces the effect of a varnish more agreeable 
than resinous varnishes with their viscous quality. 
The paint will remain supple and will preserve its 
brilliance ; a slight friction will suffice to revive the 
varnish if it becomes dim. Egyptian paintings over 
2,000 years old survive to attest this. : 

4. There will no longer be any reason to fear the 
bloom arising from resinous varnish, which, as we 
have seen, works such havoc. 

5. If the artist wishes to use a resinous varnish 
because of the golden patina it produces, this wax, 
laid over it, will give it elasticity, and prevent it 
from cracking the colour beneath ; it will also pre- 
vent the resinous varnish itself from cracking. 

6. Finally, re-touches with oil paint will not 
adhere to a picture thus treated, so, if this process 
became general, restorers could no longer repaint 
entire passages and figures, as they have hitherto 
taken upon themselves to do.* 

* The audacities of the restorer are chiefly directed to the faces in a picture. 
He repaints hands less freely ; draperies even less frequently, and backgrounds 


are often left intact. His interference is unfortunately in a direct ratio to the 
value and interest of the various parts of a picture. 


192 


é 
i 
q 
3 
‘ 
7 
a 


REPAIRING PICTURES 


Mons. Albert Jehn’s products will thus offer 
advantages as precious to modern as to old pictures, 
and their chief ingredient, wax, has given so many 
proofs of durability from antiquity onwards that we 
have all necessary guarantees for the future in 
favour of this process. 


Repair of Accidents. 

Pictures do not suffer from their varnish only ; 
they also run risks of deterioration due to the 
material on which they are painted. 

Canvas is the most usual, but also the most 
fragile of foundations. In spite of all the care 
bestowed upon it, it is liable to accidents of 
every kind and degree. 

The simplest are easy to repair, and artists can 
do this themselves. 

The commonest of these minor disasters are 
protuberances, blisters, and fissures. 


Protuberances. 

Take a sponge dipped in lukewarm water and 
wet the back of the canvas where it protrudes. 
Then leave it to dry in a moderate temperature. 


Blisters or Bubbles. 

Begin by putting petroleum oil mixed with 
spirits of petroleum in equal portions upon the 
blister to soften it. Then prick it with a needle, 
and introduce some picture varnish into the hole 
made by the needle. A drop-measure may be used 
for the purpose. Then press the blister gently 
with a rag to squeeze out any excess of varnish, 
and put the canvas under a weight, after placing a 


P. 193 O 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


piece of zinc or glass with perfectly smooth edges 
over the blister. It is wise to slip a paper smeared 
with paste between the blister and the glass, in case 
the varnish from the blister should stick to the glass 
itself. If this should happen to the paper, it could 
easily be sponged off with a little tepid water. 


Torn Canvases. 

The simplest process is to put the torn canvas 
flat on a table—with the painting turned to the 
table—and to plaster the rent with several pieces 
of gauze pasted one over the other or a single piece 
of pasted canvas. In both cases, the paste should 
be made of a thin layer of white lead mixed with 
enough oil to make it viscous. A weight of some 
kind should be kept on the plaster for a day or 
two. 

Very often wax is used instead of white lead 
and oil. The patch will show less on the back of 
the canvas if it is so cut as to be very little larger 
than the rent itself, and frayed out unequally at the 
edges. An iron heated slightly in boiling water 
should be used to soften the painting a little, and 
the two edges of the wound should be pressed 
together before the operation. 

After having applied the patch smeared with a 
thin coating of wax, the iron should again be 
applied, but cold this time, and the canvas should 
be pressed for twenty-four hours. 

Some experts, Vibert among others, die 
of the use of wax. They think it susceptible to 
damp (it appears that these patches often rot); 
they also say that it will not hold a re-touch. And 
as the wax passes through the rent to the surface 


194 


TORN CANVASES 


of the picture, the colour will not adhere when the 
operator tries to conceal the join. 

To counteract this defect, Vibert proposes first 
to apply a layer of caseine and zinc white, which 
will prevent the wax from passing through the 
canvas, and secondly, to melt damar resin in 
equal quantities with the wax in a bain-marie. 
But he prefers an application of caseine paste to 
either of these two methods. It should be laid on 
the fissure in the canvas and a sheet of thin paper 
should be fitted over it. When the paper is dry, a 
piece of fine canvas, smaller than the paper, should 
be pasted over it. The repair should be flattened 
with a warm iron, and should then receive several 
coats of the varnish used for re-touching. 

This pasting process is not, however, universally 
approved. There are persons who think that it 
draws the canvas, and that it gradually forms a 
protuberance upon the picture. 

When the tear has left a void, a more delicate 
operation, which forms an invisible repair, may be 
performed. The outline of the wound should be 
traced with a pencil on a canvas of the same 
texture as the damaged canvas. The piece must 
then be cut out with a pair of sharp scissors, follow- 
ing the traced line, in such a manner that it will 
fit exactly into the holeinthe canvas. After laying 
the picture on a table, the ends of the threads of 
the torn canvas and the edges of the patch must be 
touched with size, and the latter must then be fitted 
into the void. A wet brush is drawn over the line 
of junction, and then a spatula, slightly warmed. 
The warmth dissolves the size. A warm iron may 
then be laid upon the spot and left for a day. 


195 0 2 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


To stop up the joins of a repair and to get a 
smooth coating which conceals any trace of the 
operation, a compound of size and Spanish white 
should be used. (Caseine is dangerous, although 
Vibert recommends its use.) Another recipe fre- 
quently used consists of a mixture of damar resin 
and of some colour in powder, the tint to be deter- 
mined by circumstances. The whole is ground into 
a liquid paste with water-colour fixative. 

These coatings are laid on smoothly so as to 
conceal the joins. When the repair has been 
carried out on a canvas the grain of which is 
apparent, a piece of the same canvas may be laid 
on the paste before it hardens, and it should be 
firmly pressed till it leaves the impression of the 
texture. This will mask the solution of continuity. 

But there are certain accidents which cannot 
be repaired by means of a patch. In general, 
when the gash requires a plaster more than 10 
centimetres in extent at its greatest length, it is 
better to line the canvas throughout. Otherwise, 
the large patch added under the canvas will 
bubble, and form either a hollow or a swelling. 

Lining may also be necessary when a canvas is 
so worn at the edges that it will not hold to the 
stretcher, and finally, when the paint scales and 
blisters in parts, without rising all over the picture, 
and the canvas, though old and discoloured, is still 
sound. 


Liningand Transferring. 

To line a picture means to put a new canvas 
behind the old one. Artists and amateurs should 
call in an expert for this delicate operation, and not 

190 


LINING 
gla ala a 
attempt it themselves, except in the case of canvases 
of little value. 

The old canvas should be removed from the 
stretcher and laid flat upon a table, the painted side 
upwards. If the canvas has been fixed to the 
stretcher by a margin without any priming, this 
margin may be cut away; but if it has been stretched 
and nailed with the priming, and even painting, on 
the edges, these must be smoothed out with an iron, 
a piece of paper or felt being interposed between 
the canvas and the iron. When the canvas is 
perfectly flat it must be covered entirely with a sheet 
of paper brushed over with size or paste. 

When the paper is quite dry the canvas is turned 
over and laid on the table face downwards. The 
back of the canvas is rubbed over with pumice-stone 
to equalise the surface, which is then entirely 
covered with a thin coat of glue. All that now 
remains to be done is to apply the new canvas, 
which has previously been covered with glue in the 
same manner. A warm iron is then passed very 
carefully over the back and over the front of the 
picture. This melts the gelatine in the glue, and 
causes the scales of paint on the surface of the 
picture to re-adhere; on the back it expels the air 
and any superfluous glue, makes the two canvases 
adhere firmly and prevents the appearance of 
bubbles. The double canvas is then stretched in 
the usual way. 

The benefits of this ironing process are often 
purchased at the price of several disadvantages. 
It is said to submit the paint and the priming 
to a prolonged damping, and to introduce into 
the paint an element susceptible to damp, which 


1Q7 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


may do infinite harm by fermentation. The opera- 
tion is considered very delicate, even by restorers, 
who only perform it in cases of absolute necessity, 

The transference of a picture from one canvas to 
another is an operation still more delicate. This 
process was invented in the seventeenth century by 
a Frenchman called Picault. It is adopted when 
the original canvas is absolutely rotten, or when the 
paint is peeling off the entire surface. 

The first steps taken are similar to those of 
re-lining ; after having laid a coat of paste over 
the face of the picture, a thin sheet of coloured 
paper is applied to it; in the case of a valuable 
picture, a sheet of gauze is preferable; this will 
allow the air to escape, and will adhere better to 
the paint. The coloured paper or gauze enables the 
operator to see—after the removalof the layers which 
eventually strengthen it—how near he is getting to 
the surface of the picture when he is scraping off 
the superimposed sheets. As soon as the coloured 
paper or the gauze is visible, he knows he is 
approaching the painting. 

After allowing this first covering to dry for forty- 
eight hours, it is overlaid by a series of papers 
pasted one upon the other till they form a kind of 
cardboard strong enough to support the painting. 
The picture is then turned over, removed from its 
stretcher, and fixed flat upon the table, face down- 
wards. The canvas is slightly moistened with a 
wet sponge ; if necessary, a wet cloth is spread over 
it to maintain the moisture. If the canvas was sized 
before it was primed the size yields, and the old 
canvas comes away easily. In this case the 
painting is left to dry, and the next day the new 

198 


oe 


ate a att 


TRANSFERRING PICTURES 


canvas is applied by the same process as that used 
in re-lining. 

But if there was no size the canvas resists and 
the operation becomes more difficult. ‘The canvas 
must be rubbed away with pumice-stone or with a 
file until it is entirely removed. 

If the painting was executed on cardboard or 
panel, a stronger padding of paper will be required 
to support it during the operation. 

This padding is well soaked and then removed 
by friction with the fingers or by a scraper. 

When the picture is on panel the repairs are 
more or less important in proportion to the injuries 
received by the painting itself. 

If the panel is in good condition, and if the 
painting alone has suffered from damp, which has 
detached it from its support in places, hot size 1s 
poured upon the damaged place. It penetrates 
beneath the scales and congeals. A sheet of paper 
with a very thin coating of paste is laid over it, and 
when this is dry a hot iron is applied. It melts the 
size, which spreads under the scales and re-fixes 
them to the panel. 

When the panel is warped, it must be damped and 
put into a press, after which it must be cradled. 
This process is described on p. 113. A split panel 
must also be cradled. 

But there are cases in which the panel is rotten. 
It must be destroyed, and the painting must be 
transferred to canvas. A certain number of the 
pictures in the Louvre have undergone this process: 
Rubens’ Virgin with Angels, in which we still 
see traces of the fissures in the panel, Raphael’s 
Saint Michael, etc. 


199 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
ene enaneu inane 

The operator begins, as ina transfer from canvas, 
by overlaying the painting with a gauze and a stout 
padding of sheets of paper pasted one over the 
other. The panel is then removed, first by sawing 
it away in small squares, then by working on it 
successively with a chisel, a plane, and finally a file. 
After having got rid of the panel, the operator 
removes the priming, which in the pictures of the 
Primitives is always cracked and defective. The 
transfer is effected in the same manner as from 
canvas. 

There is a document in existence which describes 
in detail the transfer of a picture by Raphael at the 
beginning of the nineteenth century. Passavant 
writes as follows of this famous restoration: ‘‘ Lovers 
of art owe an incalculable debt of gratitude to 
France, who may claim the proud distinction of 
having saved many master-pieces of painting, when 
these were sent to Paris as a result of the compacts 
which the fortune of war dictated during the Italian 
campaign.” 

Installed in the depths of churches or of damp 
chapels, the majority of these pictures were already 
in a lamentable state when, removed by inexpe- 
rienced hands and transported under disastrous 
conditions, they arrived at the Louvre as trophies 
of victory. 

The Institut appointed a Commission to deal with 
them, and a very capable restorer, named Hacquin, 
successfully transferred several of the pictures. It 
was considered too great a risk to move the 
Transfiguration to Paris; it was transferred at Rome. 
When Titian’s Death of Peter Martyr was brought 
from Venice, the injuries it had received during the 

200 


TRANSFER OF THE MADONNA DI FOLIGNO 


journey made it necessary to apply the same remedy. 
During the voyage on the frigate La Favorite, the 
case containing the picture was flooded with sea- 
water; the wet caused the panel to swell, and the 
paint was detached from the support. The case 
was put to dry in the sun after landing, and the 
paint began to scale off in every direction. It was 
decided that the transfer of the picture was urgently 
necessary. 

I transcribe a document which is interesting both 
historically and as a description of the actual 
transfer of a picture from panel to canvas. It 1s 
the official account of the Commission which super- 
intended the transfer and restoration of Raphael’s 
Madonna di Foligno :— 


Transfer of a Picture by Raphael, the Madonna di Foligno; 
extvact from the Report of the Commissioners. 

“ When this picture was brought in at Foligno, it was in 
such a state that the art commissioners in Italy hesitated as 
to whether they should send it to Paris or not; they did not 
make up their minds to order its dispatch until several places 
where the painting was scaling from the panel had been 
patched by pasting strips of gauze over them. In addition to 
this disfigurement, the panel of white wood, om. 032 thick, 
on which the picture was painted, had a crack om. oic 
wide at the upper end, which ran down from the centre, 
diminishing gradually in width, to the feet of the Infant 
Jesus ; from this fracture to the right edge the surface formed 
a curve of om. 067 at its greatest arc; and from the fracture 
to the other edge, another line with an arc of om. 054. A 
large number of scales had already fallen off, and in addition, 
the picture was worm-eaten in several places. 

“The salvation of this precious picture from the ruin that 
threatened it was therefore of the utmost urgency, and the 
Government decided to have it transferred, being convinced 
that this was the only way of saving the picture. But as 
an operation of such importance, especially when performed 
on a picture of Raphael’s, is only to be undertaken with a 


201 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


religious respect, the Minister of the Interior was desired to 
request the Institut National to nominate a Commission from 
among its members, who were to superintend the proposed 
restoration and make a report on it, to the end that the timid 
might be reassured and the ill-disposed silenced, and further, 
that the simple operations in question might be made public, 
and the quackery and trickery heretofore connected with them 
might be banished. 

“The Commissioners appointed were the Citizens Guitonand 
Bertholet, chemists, and the Citizens Vincent and Taunay, 
painters. They agreed with the Government as to the urgent 
necessity of transferring the picture. 

“The following is an account of the operations they carried 
out :—- 

“The first thing to be done was to make the surface even. 
To accomplish this, a gauze was pasted over the painting, and 
the picture was turned on its face ; Citizen Hacquin then cut 
little hollows in the wood at intervals from the arched top of 
the picture to the part where the panel became straighter; 
into these hollows he introduced small wedges of wood: he 
then covered the entire panel with wet cloths, which he kept 
renewing ; the pressure of the wedges, which swelled with the 
damp, against the softened wood, forced this back into shape ; 
the two edges of the crack were brought together; the restorer 
introduced glue to unite the two divided parts, and he applied 
transverse oak battens to hold the picture in position as it 
dried. When this process had been slowly accomplished, he 
laid a second gauze over the first, and then two successive 
layers of porous brown paper. 

‘“When these in their turn had dried, he turned the picture 
over on a table, on which he fixed it carefully; he then pro- 
ceeded to remove the panel on which the picture was 
painted. 

“The first part of this process was carried out with two saws, 
one working perpendicularly, the other horizontally; when 
the saws had done their part, the panel was reduced to one- 
tenth of a centimetre in thickness; the operator then used a 
plane of a convex shape across the panel, working obliquely, 
to avoid the grain of the wood, and to remove only very short 
shavings; by this means he reduced the panel to the two- 
hundredth part of a centimetre ; he then took a flat plane witha 
toothed blade, the action of which brought away the wood in a 


202 


TRANSFER OF THE MADONNA DI FOLIGNO 


a 


powder; with this he reduced the panel to the thickness of 
a sheet of paper. 

“In this state the wood was repeatedly wetted in small 
compartments with pure water, which softened it; he then 
separated it from the paint with the rounded blade of a 
knife. 

“ When the citizen Hacquin had removed all the priming on 
which the picture was painted, and above all, the adhesives 
necessitated by former restorations, he laid bare Raphael's 
first design on the panel. 

“To give a little elasticity to the paint which time had 
dried to excess, he rubbed it over with cotton-wool dipped 
in oil and wiped it with some old muslin; then, a coat of 
white lead ground in oil was applied with a soft brush as a 
substitute for the priming. Three months were allowed 
for drying, and then a gauze was laid down upon the 
oil priming, and over this, a fine canvas. When this canvas 
was dry, the picture was. unscrewed from the table, and 
turned face upwards; the layers of paper and gauze were 
removed with water, and when this was done, the operator 
proceeded to deal with the inequalities of the surface, caused by 
the wrinkling of certain parts. For this purpose, he applied 
thin paste to the inequalities; then, laying an oiled paper 
over the moistened surface, he pressed a warm iron on the 
wrinkles, which disappeared; but he didnot venture to apply 
the iron to the picture till he had satisfied himself by various 
tests of the exact degree of heat suitable for the purpose. 

“ We have seen that the painting, freed from its size, priming, 
and all foreign substances, had been fixed on a new priming 
mixed with oil, and that the surface wrinkles had been 
smoothed out; the master-piece had still to be fixed firmly 
on a new foundation; for this, it had to be pasted over with 
papers again, the temporary gauze which had been pasted over 
the priming had to be removed, and a new coating of white lead 
and oil to be applied ; a very flexible gauze also coated with 
the preparation was laid over this, and then an unbleached 
canvas woven for the purpose, and impregnated on the outer 
surface with a resinous mixture designed to fix it to a similar 
canvas already fastened to the stretcher. This last operation 
required that the picture, released from its provisional coverings 
and provided with a new foundation, should be applied with 
the utmost precision to the canvas coated with resinous 


203 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


substances ; all accidents that might have arisen from unequal 
or over-violent straining of the picture had to be avoided, and 
yet every portion of the vast canvas had to be made to adhere 
firmly to the canvas already on the stretcher. By means of these 
elaborate processes the picture was ultimately incorporated 
with a basis more durable than the original one, and safe- 
guarded against accidents such as those which had caused its 
deterioration. It was then handed over to the restorer.” 


The details of the restoration carried out by 
‘“‘Citizen Roeser ”’ are of no particular interest. 

Cases sometimes occur in which a painting on a 
wall has to be removed. ‘This operation presents 
difficulties of a new kind. A stout protection of 
pasted paper is applied on the method already 
described; the wall is then cut into deeply all 
round the painting, and the plaster which supports 
the colour is detached with a chisel. As this 
plaster comes away from the wall it is rolled on a 
cylinder with the colour which adheres to it. All 
the operator then has to do isto remove the cement 
with a chisel. 

If the painting has been applied to a wall, not on 
a ground of plaster, but merely on a priming, it 
must be detached by the help of a toothed chisel, 
which saws through the stone just beneath the 
colour, this being held together by the temporary 
padding pasted on its surface. Sometimes a 
scaffolding is built up in front of the painting to 
reinforce the support, and the wall is destroyed. 

Sometimes the conditions are such as to bid 
defiance to all recognised methods and invite novel 
experiments. 

Corot painted two sketches on the unprepared 
wall ofa little house at Sauvigny (Céte d’Or). These 
paintings measured I m. 10 x go centimetres each. 

204 


REMOVAL OF WALL-PAINTINGS 


As they were suffering from the damp, Mons. Cirot, 
a retired barrister, who had come into possession of 
this property, applied to Messrs. Brisson, picture- 
restorers, and entrusted the paintings to their care. 
The operation was a very delicate one. Not only 
was the painting very slight in parts, but there were 
also passages where the plaster of the wall had been 
left untouched and played its part in the composition. 
Before applying the pasted paper, Messrs. Brisson 
varnished it very heavily, on account of these un- 
painted passages. Itwas a device both ingeniousand 
prudent, which served to protect the layers of paper 
during the destruction of the foundation. The wall 
was then cut into deeply all round the pictures. A 
stout panel was fixed over each cartonnage, and, 
when the painting had been thus firmly secured, the 
plaster of the wall was sawed through behind it. 

When detached it was provided with another 
panel at the back, and the two Corots were con- 
veyed to Paris, each between its two panels. The 
total weight was about 800 pounds. 

In Paris, where the operation had been much 
discussed, and had greatly interested artists, 
Messrs. Brisson completed their work, scraping 
away the plaster from the pictures, and replacing 
it by canvas. They then had only to remove the 
sustaining panel and the pasted papers (carionnage). 

These two pictures, which would have dis- 
appeared but for the skill and ingenuity of those 
who undertook to preserve them, are now certainly 
worth over 100,000 francs (£4,000) each. 

A similar operation had been previously carried 
out by Mons. Chapay in the case of six Corots at 
Ville d’Avray, in a pavilion belonging to the 

205 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


publisher, Mons. Lemerre. In this instance the 
difficulties were aggravated by the fact that the 
wall was slightly concave. 


Restoration. 

Paintings suffer not only from defects in their 
varnishes and their foundations, but also from 
intrinsic blemishes; they are liable to split, crack, 
blister and scale. Colours become dull and powdery, 
they bloom and stain. When the foundation splits 
if it is a panel, or rots if it is a canvas, the colour 
itself is disturbed. 

We have seen how to repair varnishes and founda- 
tions, if they alone are attacked. But if the paint- 
ing itself is damaged, either independently or by 
defects in the foundation, this too must be repaired. 

Many severe things have been said about restora- 
tion. Delacroix wrote as follows in his Journal :— 


Every so-called restoration is an outrage a thousand times 
more lamentable than any ravage wrought by time; it is not 
the picture which comes back to us, but a new one, the work 
of the miserable dauber who has replaced the author of the 
original work, which has disappeared under his brush.” 


These words are severe, and perhaps exag- 
gerated. What is to be done then with a picture 
which has been lined or transferred after scaling? 
We may admire an architectural ruin, for in spite 
of its decay it still has a certain unity. It is not 
the same thing in the case of a picture covered 
with cracks, whose ground is coming through, 
and not*only injures the general appearance of the 
picture, but opens a passage to damp, air, gases, 
and all the other agents of destruction beneath the 
parts of the picture that are still intact. 

206 


DETERIORATION AND RESTORATION 


1. Lakes destroyed by whites, but intact in the shadows : Hoty FamiLy 
of Francis I, by RAPHAEL. (The Louvre.) 


2. Restorer’s re-touches, which now appear as spots on the skin: 
CRUCIFIXION, by A. SOLARIO, (The Louvre.) 


a 


RE-TOUCHING 


coer ST IT aa ca 


Dinet, in his Fléaux de la Peinture,has written a 
passage so instinct with sound judgment, experience, 
and independence of mind tempered by a spirit of 
conciliation that I cannot do better than lay it 
before the reader :-— 


“Far be it from me to enter upon a campaign against 
picture-restorers. No one can admire more than ole dosthe 
prodigies of skill, patience and taste, performed by some of 
them ; paintings detached from damp walls or rotting panels 
and transferred to sound canvases, re-paintings executed by 
barbarous hands removed with such dexterity as to bring to 
light again the original work of the master in perfect 
condition, etc... . 

“They deserve a full measure of gratitude and congratula- 
tion for these things. 

“But their delicate and difficult function may become a 
disastrous one unless it is strictly delimited. 

“ After re-lining a picture and removing an old varnish 
they have often to fill up cracks or voids left by the scaling 
off of portions of the paint, and it is in this operation that they 
have too often incurred well-deserved censure. 

“The fact is that in this operation, which may seem so 
simple to the public when compared with re-lining and 
removing a varnish, they are confronted with an insuperable 
difficulty. 

“The paint with which they fill up acrack ought to contain 
as much oil and varnish as that which surrounds it, if it is to 
blend with this and present the same appearance. 

‘Now all colour sufficiently saturated with oil and varnish 
darkens after a time, until it is absolutely dry. 

“ A re-touch made with the utmost precision on a picture, 
the perfectly dry colours of which will not darken any more, 
will not harmonise with these when it has undergone the 
inevitable process of darkening.* It is very difficult even for 
the artist himself to resume work on a picture which has been 
laid aside for some time. Restorers know this very well, and 


* In Andrea Solario’s Crucifixzon, the arm and shoulder of the soldier 
throwing the dice seem to have been disfigured by some horrible skin 
disease. These spots, so offensive to the eye, are the result of early re-touches 
which have darkened. 


207 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
ene 


as they might be accused of bungling their harmony from 
defective perception, they re-paint the whole passage, so that 
the re-touch shall not become discordant. 

“But would not anything be preferable to so monstrous a 
profanation ? 

“Imagine the effect of a head by Titian entirely re-painted 
by a person evidently very skilful, but hardly equal to his 
heroic task. 

“ Unhappily, there are too many instances of such exploits. 
And think of the facilities such a practice offers to the forgers 
who fabricate old pictures ! 

“At a recent sale there wasa picture by a Flemish Primitive 
in which a single piece of crimson drapery, overlooked by the 
restorer, revealed by the contrast it presented, the re-painting 
of all the rest of the picture. 

“There was also a Ruysdael, loaded with a modern repaint 
to which a look of age had been given by means of a glaze of 
ivory black; the cold tone of this was a clumsy counterfeit 
of the brown veil of an ancient varnish; it stamped the 
superficial paint we could see as a product of the last few 
years. 

‘“Was there a real Ruysdael concealed underneath? This 
we shall never know. What difference is there between a 
genuine picture worked over in this fashion, and forgeries pure 
and simple ? 

“We see by these exampels, which we might multiply 
indefinitely, that if the partisans of restoration are sometimes 
tight, the opponents of the operation are still more often 
Wee 


We see how much conscientiousness, labour, 
delicacy, and knowledge are required for the 
material restoration of a picture. One of the most 
essential qualities in an artist who undertakes such 
a task is a keen perception of tone. Unless he is 
capable of seeing and reproducing a tone exactly, 
every re-touch will stand out and will exaggerate 
the evil instead of removing it. He requires great 
experience in the art of painting, for he has to 
reproduce all kinds of ancient manners and 

208 - 


GOOD RESTORER’S EQUIPMENT 


processes, and it is necessary for him to discern 
them before he can reproduce them. Nowa modern 
painter, even when very skilful, is dominated by his 
personality and hismanner. In the restorer, know- 
ledge and self-effacement are equally essential. He 
must assimilate the style of his original and be 
familiar with its methods. Our modern manner of 
painting heavily with a loaded brush tends to an 
exclusive and restricted technique, which ignores 
all the resources of glazes and scumblings. A 
restorer requires to have a more thorough know- 
ledge of technique than the best of our contemporary 
masters; if not, he would be incapable of recon- 
structing a handling earlier than that of David. 
He must further possess a quality very rare in our 
days, universality of genre; he must be capable ot 
executing landscape and figures, interiors and open- 
air subjects; before any given subject he must feel 
himself on familiar ground, and equipped to repair 
ravages of any and every kind. 

Modern pictures require great prudence in the 
repairer, because the impasto is still soft, though 
the varish is already dry; and as they have always 
been varnished too soon, the varnish which has pene- 
trated the colour has become incorporated with it. 

In old pictures there are sometimes ancient 
re-paints and restorations. As they never adhere 
to the original painting, directly the varnish is 
removed, they are revealed as spots on the model- 
ling, and are to be recognised by their dirty yellow 
appearance. They may be removed witha scraper, 
but this is an operation requiring great experience ; 
it is easier to soften them first with cotton-wool 
dipped in spirits of wine and oil. 

P, 209 P 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
i oe 

Fly stains may be removed from a varnished 
surface with the scraper, but it is difficult to efface 
them on unvarnished pictures. 

To study the manner of each great master and 
even of each great school would be to go over the 
ground already traversed in our historical survey of 
technique. Moreover, theoretical knowledge is no 
substitute for experience. One general rule applies 
in principle to every case. It is this: the restorer 
must do his best to assimilate the handling and 
colour of the sound parts of a picture, and must 
refrain from encroaching on these parts in order to 
harmonise and mask his re-touches. This, as we 
have seen, is Dinet’s contention. The danger of 
re-touching lies here. Indolence leads the restorer 
to apply a dubious re-touch; conscious of the dis- 
cord, he re-paints the whole passage, and to bring 
this into the general atmosphere he transforms the 
whole aspect of the picture. From this process to 
a forgery there is but one step: the difference is 
only in the intention; the result is practically the 
same. 

In repairing a Primitive picture, generally painted 
on panel and often in some kind of tempera, it may 
be difficult to recognise paint which would dissolve 
under moisture. In the case of tempera pictures, it 
is well to take great precautions when the general 
tone is so light that there is little difference between 
the luminous parts and the dark passages. 

If the restorer has to deal with an oil-painting of 
this period, the material, on the contrary, is hard 
and resisting, unless the colour is beginning to scale 
from the foundation. We know that the priming 
of this period was composed of Spanish white and 

210 


DIFFICULTIES OF RESTORATION 
(nn a Se eae 
size. The-size, which has been alternately softened 
and swelled by the damp, and contracted and 
dried by the heat, has robbed the priming of its 
consistency. The size has decomposed and the 
priming has cracked. The paint suffers from the 
deterioration of its ground; it cracks and scales, 
and becomes a favourable field for every kind of 
mischief. 

Re-painting on the pictures of this period requires 
the utmost delicacy of touch. The broader manner 
of the Italians and Flemings of the Renaissance is 
less difficult. 

As the French school down to Poussin is a 
reflection of the Italian school, it offers no special 
difficulties. But from Poussin onwards, the French 
school becomes very dangerous ground for the 
restorer. Each master evolved a different technique 
for himself, full of charm, grace, and spontaneity. 
As we draw nearer to the eighteenth century the 
complications increase, and we are confronted with 
extraordinary virtuosities, glazes and_ technical 
devices without end. 

If, by good luck, only a portion of a glaze has 
disappeared, it may be restored with due skill; but 
when it has been removed bodily, how are we to 
know that it once existed, and how are we to 
imagine what it was like? 

What, for instance, are we to think of a picture 
like Greuze’s Village Bride, in the Louvre, when we 
read what was written about it by the painter Pierre 
in 1782, at the moment when the picture was bought 
at Mons. de Marigny’s sale, and became the property 
of the king ? 

‘‘Mons. Greuze’s best picture,” wrote Pierre, 

211 P 2 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
oie aa tale 
‘very good and very fine (sic). All the glazes Mons. 
Greuze used have evaporated, hence a crudity which 
did not originally exist. Pictures painted in solid 
colours improve with years ; those whose harmony 
is fictitious deteriorate. All the artists were struck 
by the present instance.” 

The picture dated from 1761. In twenty years 
it had already lost its glazes; yet it is a picture 
which seems to be fairly well preserved. What 
would remain of its original appearance if, in 
addition, it had suffered materially ? 

In the present day, the public is interested in the 
preservation of the works which form part of our 
national patrimony ; restorers are in general more 
skilful, more conscientious, and more strictly super- 
vised; keepers of art treasures are more learned, and 
have a greater sense of their responsibilities; more 
intelligent care is bestowed upon the pictures in our 
great museums. | 

But under the ancient régime, before the Revolu- 
tion, the pictures which formed the royal collections, 
and are now in the Louvre, underwent drastic 
restorations. We have the sorrowful assurance 
that what we now admire are for the most part 
travesties, and in many cases, perhaps, caricatures 
of the original works of the greatest masters. 

To convince ourselves of this fact, it will suffice 
to remember that in less than a hundred years a 
picture suffers fatally in its varnish and its founda- 
tion, that it requires the removal of the varnish, 
re-lining, perhaps transferring, and finally repairs 
and restorations. Now before the Revolution, these 
operations were entrusted to artists of no distinc- 
tion, who worked entirely without supervision. 

212 


RESTORATION OF PICTURES IN THE LOUVRE 


What happened? Rather than set to work to fill 
up cracks and repair damages, a difficult and deli- 
cate task, which entailed the possibility that the 
re-touches would become apparent some day, and 
stand out like stains on the picture, the restorer 
entirely re-painted skies, faces, draperies, and even 
nude figures. 

Proof of these barbarities is to be found in the 
accounts of the restorers, who at the time of the 
Revolution began to work under the control and 
superintendence of art commissions. The first 
Museums Commission inquired into these matters 
from 1792 to 1794, and thereupon accounts came to 
light which contain the most lamentable revelations. 


Extract from an Account for restoration of a portion 

of the pictures in the Museum housed in the Galerie des 
Plans, by Citizen Regnaud, painter, Rue des Cordeliers, 
C10, 2% 
For restoration of a Village Féte (La Kermesse), 
by Rubens, on which rt was necessary to spend avery long 
time tn order to remove a sky which had been re-painted, 
and to carry out other operations. 240 livres, reduced 
by the Commission to 200 livres. 

Further on :— 

For cleamng, and removing the varnish and the re- 
paints fromtwo pictures in the Rubens Gallery, one repre- 
senting The Landing of Marte de’ Medicis in France, 
the other The Accouchement of Marte de’ Medicis. 
200 livres each= 400; reduced by the Commission to 
300 livres. For a landscape by Rubens, The Rainbow, 
72, livres, reduced to 60.* 


* Archives de Art frangais-—Unpublished documents, Vol. III., Library of 
the Ecole des Beaux Arts. : 


@t3 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


I will stop here, for the list is too long. When 
we think of the delicacy of Rubens’ colour in the 
shadows, we may ask what can have happened to 
a picture covered with re-paints, and then relieved 
of these ? What can we accept with any confidence 
in these pictures ? 

At the same period, Hacquin put new stretchers 
to the A potheosis of Henri IV. and the Coronation of 
the Queen. Rubens’ Virgin with Angels, originally 
on panel, but already transferred to canvas, was 
cleaned and restored in 1793. 

Poussin’s Deluge, which split two years ago, and 
had to be transferred to a new canvas, was restored 
at the time of the Revolution by Martin Laporte, 
who declared that it was ‘‘ obscured by dirt of long 
standing.’ Poussin’s Diogenes, his Woman taken in 
Adultery, and his Infant Moses were all restored by 
the same artist. 

Martin Laporte also restored, in 1792, the Holy 
Family of Francis I. ‘‘ Cleaned,” says the account, 
“and mended the head of the Virgin, which was damaged 
by scales, cracks and little holes. . . . Re-touched with 
ultramarine (?), with the greatest care and by the help 
of a magnifying glass (200 livres).” 

He also restored Correggio’s Saint Catherine. 

But David attacked the Museums Commission ; 
he accused it of incompetence, and declared it had 
“done fatal damage to monuments of art.” In 
Correggio’s Antiope, for instance, he said, the glazes 
and half-tones, in a word, all that specially charac- 
terises Correggio and puts him above the greatest 
painters, have disappeared. Was he right? Did 
he not exaggerate? Who can say at present ? 

This Commission was suppressed in 1794, and 


214 


PREPARATIONS FOR RESTORERS 


replaced by another which certainly tried to do 
better. Did it succeed? It is so difficult to see 
well, it is so rare to see correctly. So many 
painters, and among them some of the best, 
are incompetent judges. In our own day, when 
we consult certain restorers and they become 
confidential about the work of their colleagues, we 
are horrified to hear of the vandalisms daily com- 
mitted with impunity. It is true that some of these 
revelations must be discounted by consideration of 
professional rivalries and the calumnies they inspire. 

I appeal once more to Dinet, who also deals with 
re-touching in his little volume, and prescribes a 
method, at once prudent and practical, of restoring 
a picture .— 

“The varnish having been removed, the cracks must be filled 
up, and the portions that have scaled off must be replaced. 
We have seen that it is impossible to prevent these re-touches 
from darkening after a time, and standing out like stains on 
the picture. 

“To obviate this defect certain conscientious restorers use 
only water-colours, which dry quickly and do not darken. 

“Their method is good, but it is somewhat inconvenient, 
and as white must be excluded from their mixtures, it makes 
most repairs very difficult to harmonise. 

“Here is another method, which, with a little practice, will 
enable the restorer to make perfectly invisible re-touches, which 
will not darken with time. 

“ Mix the yolk of an egg with an equal quantity of water 
and the same of vinegar; stir these together, and use this 
liquid tc moisten water-colours ; for white, the zinc white 
commonly called Chinese white should be used. Paint in thin 
layers, lightly applied. 

“Instead of whitening as gouache (body-colour) does, these 
colours will darken as they dry, as do oil colours, and will 
become lustreless ; but as this will take place in a few minutes, 
it will be possible to judge of the effect at once. 

“Tf the tone, which must, of course, be rather hight when 

215 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


applied, does not harmonise perfectly with its neighbour when 
it is dry, it can easily be removed with a sponge, and the 
operator can try again until he is satisfied. 

“As it is more difficult to model in this material, the 
restorer will have less temptation to re-paint the surrounding 
parts of the picture. The repair should be very lightly 
varnished with shellac (fixative used for charcoal drawings). 

“Finally, the whole picture should be carefully varnished 
according to the instructions given above.* 

“Tf this method of restoration were generally adopted, we 
could admire the pictures in our museums under the most 
favourable conditions. The thin coat of ancient varnish left 
on them would suffice to give them a warm harmony, and the 
re-touches, which would only fill up the voids, would no longer 
revolt us, for they would only cover bare places on the canvas, 
and not the handiwork of the master.” fT 


Dinet adds the following comment :— 


“It would be well, as a general principle, to forbid all 
re-touching with oil paint; this must inevitably produce dark 
patches. It is the oil which causes all the disasters due to 
restoration ; it should be banished inexorably.” 


It may not be amiss to say a few words about 
the re-touches and restorations applied by an artist 
himself to his picture. 

At the first blush, it would seem impossible to 
have a better restorer for a picture than the 
author of the work. But this is a_ mistake. 
Every artist knows how difficult it is to copy 
one’s own work. It is much easier to copy 
that of another. A painter who is confronted with 
a difficult repair in one of his own pictures does not 
scruple to adopt a variation of some kind. This 
may lead him very far. Even if the transformation 


* Dinet also recommends the Muzii “ brilliant tempera colours,” which look 
like oil colours, and dry in a few minutes. Colours in powder also are 
sometimes mixed with a mastic varnish. 

+ Le Figaux de la Peinture. 


216 


GLASS OVER PICTURES 
——————————_———— ooo 
be quite equal to the original version, will the 
owner of the picture be pleased to have a new work 
sent back to him, when he has become accustomed 
to the first, and has an affection for it ? 

In such a case, it will be to the advantage of the 
painter himself to give way to a skilful restorer, for 
he will find it very difficult to suppress his own 
inclinations before a personal creation; an expert 
stranger will deal more faithfully with it. 


Ceilings. 

It may be said that, thanks to their protection 
from dust and from strong light, the ceilings in 
museums are not very liable to accidents. As gas 
is banished, and damp does not attack them directly, 
most of them are well preserved. 


Paintings under Glass. 

In a memorial presented in 1775 to the 
Académie des Sciences, and now belonging to the 
library of the Ecole des Beaux Arts (Moyen de 
conserver sans altération les tableaux peints a Thuile), 
Sieur Vincent de Montpetit begins by calling atten- 
tion to a curious fact. He says that to see the per- 
nicious effect of the air on pictures, it will suffice to 
wipe the glass over a pastel with a damp white 
cloth ; it will be covered with brown dirt. Since 
1775, the colour has changed. What we now wipe 
off is pure black. 

To obviate this evil, the author of the memorial 
proposes to paste oil pictures to sheets of very clear 
glass. The method was, it appears, approved by the 
Académie des Sciences, and the author adds that his 
wife has been pleased as an ‘‘amatrice” (sic) to 

207 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


employ herself in protecting old pictures by 
his process. He does not reveal the secret of his 
method; he points out, however, difficulties, which 
he claims to have overcome, and he recommends 
distrust of imitators, who know nothing of the 
process. He concludes by inviting amateurs to 
come and see the results he has obtained. 

This practice has not survived. It is easy to 
imagine why. The glass, if broken, would work 
terrible havoc. And then, what kind of paste could 
have been used? Its action upon an old varnish, 
or on new pictures, even if unvarnished, would be 
disastrous. 

On the other hand, certain acts of vandalism 
committed in museums have led of late years to the 
practice of covering pictures with sheets of glass. 
These glasses, which are kept away from the surface 
of the picture, allow a stratum of air to reach it, 
while protecting it from damp, gas, and dust. The 
practice was not a novel one; it had long been 
common in private collections, and many artists 
were already in the habit of sending their pictures to 
the Salon under glass. 

Some amateurs complain that the reflections on 
the glass destroy the appearance of the picture, and 
even prevent one from seeing it. Others maintain 
that the lustre of the glass gives depth to the tone, 
and richness to the paint; the picture borrows 
beauty from outside. It is unquestionable that 
glass has advantages as tending to preserve the 
picture. This is of great importance and suffices 
to justify its adoption, more especially in museums, 
where pictures are less safe and less carefully 
tended than in private collections. A collector who 

218 


DETERIORATION OF PASTELS 
————— 
houses his pictures in a safe and healthy place, who 
watches over them and keeps them in proper condi- 
tion, may dispense with glasses, if he dislikes their 
lustre. 


Pastels, Water-Colours, Gouaches, 

Exposure to the sun is more hurtful to water- 
colours and pastels than to oil-paintings. The 
sun will affect the appearance of a pastel in a few 
days; if the exposure is full and continuous, four or 
five days will be long enough to destroy it entirely. 

Pastels and water-colours should be hung in a 
good light; this is necessary for the preservation of 
the colours, but they must be carefully protected 
from the sun. 

Pastel in particular requires continual precaution 
and care. Even in a place that seems perfectly 
safe, mildew will sometimes appear on the inner 
surface of the glass. This mildew, even if it does 
not extend to the pastel, should be removed at once, 
for when it dries and falls in powder to the bottom 
of the glass it will transmit its germs to the pastel. 
The damage, beginning at the base of the picture, — 
will gradually invade the whole surface. 

When mildew has attacked the pastel, the only 
remedies are scraping and restoration. The bloom 
of the mildew is first gently removed; then the 
spots are scraped. When the root of the fungus has 
been reached, a touch of medium hard white pastel 
is applied, to absorb any moisture that remains. 
This is left for two days, and then the repairis made 
in colour. 

In matching tones,'it must be remembered that our 
range of crayons is much greater now than formerly. 

219 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
Se eeesenesannuesemueeoame 
The scale includes three hundred tints. The 
number has increased very much since 1820, and the 
pastellists of the eighteenth century had only about 
thirty. This fact must be borne in mind when an 
old pastel is restored. Certain shades that we now 
apply pure were obtained by mixture. There were 
no violet crayons, for instance, and if we want to 
match a violet tint in an old pastel we must use a 
mixture of red and blue. 

Water-colours are cleaned by the help of bread- 
crumb rolled into a ball; with this the colour is 
rubbed. India-rubber may be used, but very 
cautiously, for the more obstinate stains. As this 
removes the colour, its use entails re-touching. 
It should therefore only be applied in cases of 
absolute necessity. Ink-eraser, which would destroy 
the colour and scratch the paper, should never be 
tried. 

Touches of white body colour always darken in 
old gouache paintings. A few touches with a brush 
dipped in slightly oxygenised water will give back 
their pristine whiteness, a remedy discovered by 
Thénard. Formerly white lead was the only white 
known; zinc white, known as Chinese white, does 
not darken so readily. 


Frescoes. _ 

As a certain number of colours, such as ultra- 
marine, cinnabarred,and bright green, areunsuitable 
tothe processes of pure fresco painting, most frescoes 
contain passages executed in distemper ; that is to 
say, with an agelutinant which dissolves in water. 

Fresco properthen resists water, but the distemper 
portions succumb to it. It is therefore necessary to 
420 


DETERIORATION OF A FRESCO 


~~ Bene oe 


Sesh ea) Pea 


Deterioration due to alternations of damp and dryness. The colour blisters, 
bursts, and scales off : PORTRAIT OF PINTORRICCHIO, at Spello. 


CLEANING FRESCOES 
clean frescoes very cautiously, and to have recourse 
to different methods for the pure fresco portions and 
those in distemper. 

To distinguish between the two a wet sponge 
should be applied to a corner of the picture; pure 
fresco resists, distemper yields to the sponge. 

In either case, bread-crumb may be used to 
remove dust, but pure water should be used to clean 
a fresco thoroughly ; some persons recommend the 
addition of a little vinegar, but Dinet warns me that 
the acid affects lime. 

If the fresco is mildewed, it should be gently 
warmed by astove placed at a certain distance from 
the wall. The mould will then turn to powder, 
and may be removed with bread-crumb. If the 
painting is in pure fresco, the mildew may be washed 
off with water to which a little ammonia has been 
added. 

For various reasons frescoes have been occasion- 
ally covered with whitewash. In 1630 this was 
done at Verona as a precaution against plague. 
Different methods have been adopted to remove the 
whitewash and bring the painting to light again. 
Sometimes wet paper is applied and left to dry ; 
when it is removed, it brings away the whitewash 
with it. Sometimes the wall is tapped with a special 
hammer which detaches the coat of whitewash ; 
other instruments used for the purpose are trowels, 
spatulas, palette knives, etc.* 

. 


Forgeries, 
have shown that when a restorer takes upon 
himself to re-paint important passages in a picture, 


* See Mon ch’s article in the Revue de ? Art chrétien, Library of 
es s, A6—6387. 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


and invades the canvas to such an extent as to 
replace the old painting by a new work which 
has very little to do with the original, the restored 
picture is practically a new one, which ought not to 
bear the name of its first author, and is, to all 
intents and purposes, a forgery. 

These operations, which result sometimes from 
an involuntary zeal, were formerly performed 
without scruple or concealment, and with inten- 
tions which do not seem to have been considered 
reprehensible at the time. 

In a volume dated 1851, Horsin-Déon* speaks 
of pictures called in French tableaux @ tournure 
and in Italian guadvi dt fabrica ; these were nothing 
but forgeries, which were manufactured without 
exciting public reprobation. 

The operators took an old picture of some famous 
school, painted by a third-rate artist of that school. 
It combined the qualities looked for in an ancient 
masterpiece: an old canvas, old, cracked paint, 
all the infirmities of age, real, indisputable and 
authentic, and a handling and technique no less 
genuine. As, however, this worthless picture was 
by an artist lacking both fame and talent, it was 
worked up by re-touches and glazes to the style of 
the great master, the head of the school. Horsin- 
Déon quotes the painter Patel, whose canvases 
made excellent false Claude Lorrains. 

The re-paints were given a patina to harmonise 
with the old paint. Saffron, bistre, liquorice and 
coffee were used according to circumstances. The 
whole wasthen varnished. ‘The varnish again was 
tinted with a mixture of yellow lake, bitumen, and 


* De la Conservation et de la Restoration des Tableaux. 


222 


# 


FORGERIES 


red ochre. This gave the accent of the period and 
the necessary look of age to the re-touches. 

Horsin-Déon mentions artists who enjoyed a 
ereat reputation in the middle of the nineteenth 
century for their skill in painting forgeries. Darcy 
counterfeited Greuze, but Albrier surpassed him in 
the art. The early landscape painters were very 
cleverly imitated by Messrs. Moret, Grailly, and 
Bourgeois. These imitators posed openly as imita- 
tors, or Horsin-Déon would not have spoken of 
them with the calm admiration he manifests for 
their dexterity. 

Mons. Pérignon the Elder produced “really dis- 
tinguished” imitations of Ostade and Ruysdael. 
Mons. Roehn imitated Van de Velde ‘ admirably.” 
Mons. Rioult painted Prudhons ‘‘ which will one 
day puzzle the subtlest connoisseurs.” 

Yes, indeed! What scores of these old masters 
scarce fifty years of age there must be, surrounded 
by honours, and throning it as venerable master- 
pieces in private collections and even in public 
galleries. 

But alas! these forgeries, executed secretly or 
openly, were not confined to the nineteenth century. 
I have mentioned Claude Lorrain. Why should we 
wonder that he is imitated now? He was copied 
even during his lifetime, and it was to defend himself 
against forgers that he made his Liber Veritatis, in 
which he included a drawing of every one of his 
pictures and noted its dimensions. 

At the same period Lebrun, while still a young 
man, painted, without acknowledging the pasticcio, a 
picture which was taken for a work of Poussin’s, and 
on which Poussin was congratulated. Lebrun then 

223 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
nt 
owned the work, and affected to have acted the part 
of an enthusiastic disciple. 

No such confession was made when Andrea del 
Sarto, at the request of one of the Medici, copied 
Raphael’s portrait of Leo X. This copy was sent 
to the Duke of Mantua as an original, and deceived 
Giulio Romano himself. All the world would have 
believed that Raphael had painted a replica if the 
fact had not been proclaimed later by Vasari, 
who, as Andrea del Sarto’s pupil, had witnessed 
the execution of the copy, and even collaborated 
in it. 

How many names might be cited in this connec- 
tion! Guido was copied by Boulogne; Paul 
Potter by Albert Klomp; Snyders by Paul de Vos; 
Velvet Breughel and Wouwermans by Jan van de 
Breda; Jan van Huysum by Jacob van Huysum. 
Luca Giordano copied everyone, and David Teniers, 
whom everybody copied, spared no one, and 
produced pasticci of Titian himself.* 

But if we go back still further to the past of 
Italian painting, if we come to the workshops of the 
early Renaissance, and the gangs who worked under 
popular artists, it must be confessed that many 
pictures of this period must be looked upon 
more or less as forgeries. When a painter blocked 
in a composition which was then finished by his 
pupils; when he even contented himself with 
approving a composition which could boast nothing 
of his but this approval; when every studio was a 
kind of factory where the pictures turned out had 
only a formula and an ideal in common, we may 


* Paul Eudel, Ze Zrugquage. 
224 


FORGERIES 


ask whether the pictures so produced can really 
satisfy amateurs who insist upon authenticity. 

It was not until the time of Michelangelo that a 
consciousness of artistic property began to manifest 
itself among artists. Before this, no painter 
scrupled to adapt any figure that suited him from 
the work ofacolleague. Art was practised as a kind 
of superior craft, in which individual ideas became 
common property; artists of talent hired themselves 
out to other artists, and become their anonymous 
collaborators. Raphael was the director of a band 
of distinguished painters who never aspired to 
liberty, and seldom dreamed of executing works on 
their own account. Rubens, who adopted the 
custom, employed numerous talented artists, many 
of whose pictures he never touched. There are 
certain portraits of his which we have every reason 
to suppose were entirely painted by Van Dyck. 
Rubens’ manner, imitated by Van Dyck and 
approved by Rubens, is a combination of. great 
interest to the dilettante; but would not a scrupulous 
collector be justified in thinking a picture with 
this origin not above reproach? 

By a curious contradiction forgeries multiplied 
as soon as the sentiment of proprietorship awoke. 
“Property is robbery,” it has been said, and 
assuredly it consecrates and invites robbery. 
It has been noted that as soon as a new fashion 
in collecting arises, a new form of forgery promptly 
makes its appearance. Even pre-historic remains 
have their artists in counterfeit. 

But for the last fifty years more especially, the 
art of skilful forgery has been very successfully 
practised. The best connoisseurs need to be on 

P, 225 Q 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
a 
their guard. ‘The custodians who preside over 
the barriers at the Louvre” have not been able to 
exclude it from our museums. 

I shall attempt to describe some of the best 
known and most widely practised methods of the 
forger. But the fact that they are known makes 
it probable that these methods, which have been 
exposed, are now only discernible in forgeries that 
are not quite recent. In the newer products 
there are no doubt other tricks to discover. But 
in general those which I point out as the most 
usual are essential to every forgery, and hence it 
is well to know of them. 

We have seen that the pictures known as 
tableaux de tournure were forgeries painted upon 
canvases of the period of the master imitated. 
This method is still practised. An old, worthless 
picture is procured; it is cleaned off and then covered 
entirely with a subject resembling the style of a 
famous painter. There is a simpler method 
still: a modern copy of an old picture is glued 
to an old canvas. It is represented as a replica 
of the original, or even as the true original, the 
genuine work being declared the replica. (The 
newspapers have lately described forgeries of this 
kind.) This glueing together, called marouflage 
from the particular kind of glue used (maroufie), 
is not easily detected once the canvas is fixed 
on the stretcher; the old back induces belief in 
the authenticity of the picture by lying about 
its age. 

In Germany for some years past they have been 
manufacturing false Primitives by an analogous 
process. Many good chromolithographs of the old 

220 


DEVICES OF FORGERS 


masters have been offered to the public of late. 
The forger takes one of these chromolithographs 
and rubs down the back of the paper with pumice- 
stone. When the chromois reduced to a mere skin 
of colour it is pasted to an old canvas or panel and 
varnished freely. The trick is done. 

Varnish is one of the most useful weapons in the 
forger’s arsenal. It gives an appearance of age 
and masks weaknesses of execution. Itis coloured 
golden, or even tinted with bitumen. The dirt of 
time—either above or beneath the varnish—is 
counterfeited by liquorice juice, ashes steeped in 
water, or lamp black. Poured upon the canvas, 
spread and rubbed with the palm of the hand, 
these coloured juices penetrate deeply into the 
impasto. 

Fly stains are not forgotten; a little gum tinged 
with sepia and Indian ink is mixed with water; a 
brush is dipped in the mixture and the hairs are 
pulled back sharply; the little drops that are 
squirted over the picture imitate the dirt of flies to 
perfection. 

Re-paints are even added sometimes, dark and 
clumsy re-touches, which are designed to emphasise 
the age of the picture by contrast. 

An old picture not only darkens and turns 
yellow ; it also cracks and splits sometimes, both in 
the colour and the varnish. The manufacturers 
of false pictures do not forget to imitate the cracks, 
which they produce by various means. 

The picture is exposed to the sun, or even ina 
baker’s oven. The advantages of this process are 
twofold: the paint scales and, moreover, it dries; 
it gains hardness and enamel—signs of age in a 

ao7 G2 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING © 
ee am 
picture. Cracks are further produced sometimes 
by scratching the surface with a pin. Another way 
is to take a sheet of metal and lay it over the 
canvas, which is supported beneath; the metal is 
then struck smartly with a hammer, and painting 
and varnish crack as much as the operator 
desires. 

One of the methods recommended to test the age 
of a picture is to stick the point of a needle into a 
corner of it, in the full impasto. In a picture 
painted within the last fifty to eighty years, the 
needle penetrates, making a small round hole; if 
it is older, the impasto cracks like china. A crack 
forms, and not a hole. This is a good test; but a 
picture that has been baked in the oven will 
probably have dried and hardened prematurely. 

It is also said that in a modern picture, the colours 
yield to the slightest friction with spirits of wine, 
whereas old paint resists. This method of verifi- 
cation is excellent in itself. But the forgers have 
thought of it, and one of them conceived the idea 
of covering his pictures with a thin coat of very 
liquid size. The spirits of wine cannot bite through 
this to the paint; it slips about on the size, unable 
to attack it. 

Although these gentry take upon themselves to 
paint master-pieces, they are conscious of their own 
weakness ; when some passage is so far inferior to 
the rest that they think it might betray them, they 
are careful to hide it modestly. They show no less 
ingenuity here than in other directions. First of all 
there are thick varnishes, the gloom of which 
they draw over dubious portions; then dirt will 
render the same friendly service. Clumsy re-paints 

228 


FORGED SIGNATURES 


again are useful, and look like restorations. Best 
of all, there is bloom. The corner that is to 
be hidden from the too-searching eye is rubbed 
over with a wet cloth. The water produces mildew, 
and this forms a stain which has a double value: 
it hides the dangerous passage, and gives it the 
infirmity of old age. 

Finally, as the forger does not recoil from any 
means by which he may inspire confidence in the 
customer, he not only cultivates bloom and mildew, 
but even splits his canvases right through, taking 
care tomend theminavery obvious manner. What 
would be the use of splitting a canvas to endow it 
with age and value, if the necessary repair were 
carried out with too much skill? Here, however, 
the operator is apt to overreach himself, for as 
restorers can now mend a torn canvas with such 
nicety that the repair is quite imperceptible, it is 
well to distrust a canvas that is clumsily repaired. 

As to signatures, they are imitated by specialists, 
veritable experts, who are familiar with the signa- 
tures of all the famous artists. These adroit gentry, 
who are called monogramists, know the habits of 
each great painter, the way in which he signed, the 
place where he signed, the colour he used for his 
signature. They are cunning enough sometimes 
to conceal the name more or less under a layer of 
dirt or paint, that the customer may have the 
pleasure of discovering it for himself. How can he 
doubt the genuineness of his purchase after this ? 

The very execution of forgeries is marked by no 
less variety of method. : 

A picture by a master is copied, and a variation 
of some kind is introduced ; a passage is taken from 

229 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


one picture and combined with another, or several 
others, taken from other works ofthe master. Thus 
the style and manner of the artist are obtained, 
together with a perfectly new subject. A composti- 
tion is reversed: or a simpler process is adopted, 
the signature of an obscure painter is effaced, and 
that of a famous master who painted in a similar 
manner is substituted. | 

This operation was very often performed on 
pictures by Hobbema, at a time when Hobbema 
was not in favour. As Ruysdael, who painted 
similar subjects, had a great reputation, dealers 
effaced Hobbema’s signature, and replaced it by 
that of Ruysdael. Thus it is probable that many 
so-called Ruysdaels are false Ruysdaels, but real 
Hobbemas. 

Among modern pictures, I may cite the well- 
known story of the pictures by Trouillebert, which 
became Corots and were so much admired by 
Dumas under Corot’s signature. The occurrence 
is common enough. An obscure artist named 
Vernon paints and signs pictures which recall the 
manner of Diaz. Dealers substitute the name of 
Diaz for that of Vernon. The same process is 
adopted with the works of Mons. Pata, who paints 
in the style of Courbet.* 

I have told elsewhere how a picture painted by 
Mons. Guillemet in his youth was found one day in 
a collection with Courbet’s signature onit. Some- 
times the substitution is very easy. A dealer offered 
the painter Benner a good price if he would paint 
him some pictures in the manner of Henner. 
There would have been only one letter to change. 


* Paul Eudel, Le Zruquage. 
230 


DISHONEST DEALERS’ TRICKS 
EES ae 
It is enough sometimes to erase a Christian name ; 
thus Victor Duprés have become Duprés, and even 
Jules Duprés. 

At the sales which take place after the death of 
famous artists there are often unfinished studies, 
pictures barely blocked in. As they all bear the 
official stamp of the sale on the back of the canvas 
forgers increase their value by painting into the 
dimly-suggested picture a finished composition, 
furnished with the most indisputable certificate of 
authenticity, which they sell for a large sum. 

They do worse things even than this. One of 
them bought at Fromentin’s sale an Arab Falconer, 
painted on panel, and sawed the panel through 
edgeways. This gave him a perfectly genuine 
picture without the sale stamp, and a blank panel 
furnished with the stamp of the Fromentin sale. 
All that remained to be done was to paint an Arab 
Falconer on the spare panel, which was promptly 
accomplished. 

It is not enough to be able to paint a skilful 
forgery ; means must be found of selling it well. 
Dealers are no less cunning than the manufacturers 
of these wares. 

A French collector who was passing through 
Florence bought a picture. The dealer offered to 
send it to his hotel, and proposed that he should 
write his name and address on the back of the 
panel. The collector agreed, and did so; then, 
thinking better of it, he carried off the picture with 
him, in spite of the objections of the dealer, who 
seemed singularly disturbed. When he got home, 
the traveller took the picture out of the frame to 
clean it, and found that he had brought away two 

231 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


panels stuck together ; the first—the picture he had 
bought—concealed a copy, on the back of which 
he haa signed his name. If he had allowed the 
dealer to send his purchase to the hotel, he would 
have received the copy. Had he declared that it 
was not his picture, he would have been shown his 
own signature on the panel. 

In Italy, where the law forbids the exportation 
of works of art without the permission of the 
Government, the owners of collections order copies, 
and put these in the places of the originals, which 
they send over the Alps in secret. In France, the 
owners of historic chateaux sell their family portraits 
in the same fashion, and friends who are not in 
their confidence continue to admire the copies of 
pictures that have been sold. When, on the death 
of the owner, these copies, which everyone supposes 
to be indisputably genuine, are sold, forgeries are 
put upon the market which have all the externals 
of authenticity. 

Certain dealers have pictures engraved to give 
them these marks of authenticity. False pictures 
of the school of 1830 have been thus engraved. 
These patents of nobility are forgeries. 

Strange to say, no one is more difficult to con- 
vince of the falseness of a picture than its owner. 
When a forgery has made a dupe, it has gained a 
champion more ardent and more faithful than the 
dealer who sold it. 

An artist once made the following remarks to 
me: “If you see a false picture in a collector’s 
house, you must never tell him so, never. If I saw 
a forgery of one of my own pictures, signed with 
my name, I should certainly refrain from enlighten- 

232 


* 


SPURIOUS PICTURES 


ing its owner—unless the latter were a dealer, in 
which case there would be the devil to pay. But 
I should not say a word to a collector. If the 
forgery were very bad, and might injure my reputa- 
tion, I should attribute it to my youthful period, 
but that is all. And this, because the collector 
would never forgive me for having told him the 
truth. I am certain that he would never buy 
another of my pictures—not even a genuine 
one.” 

A landscape by Guillemet had been furnished 
with Courbet’s signature. The owner was informed 
ofthis. He replied: “ Itis an absolute mistake. I 
bought this landscape from Courbet himself.” 

Just think a moment! These pictures represent 
money. If you prove that they are forgeries, they 
no longer represent anything. You not only annoy 
the collector, but you rob the proprietor, or at any 
rate, he thinks so. Indeed, how is it possible for 
him not to feel resentment and not to defend him- 
self? This man has made an investment both of 
vanity and money. He feels that you are going 
to deprive him of his reputation as a Meczenas and 
a connoisseur, to prove him a dupe, and at the 
same time to strip him of the large profit he hoped 
to make by selling his picture some day. 

There was a collector who bought a picture by 
Diaz. Diaz himself told him he had been deceived. 
Not only did the collector refuse to believe him, but 
he went about telling everyone that Diaz did not 
know what he was talking about. 

The infatuation of a collector who thinks him- 
self an artist sometimes seduces him into re- 
touching his pictures to improve them. This 


233 Ps 


s 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


mania is attributed to La Caze; the fine collection 
he gave to the Louvre is said to have undergone a 
good deal of re-painting. 


How to protect Oneself against Manufacturers of 
Bad Colours and Forgers of Pictures. 

The solidity of a picture will depend on the 
manner in which it is painted. This is quite 
certain, since in these days we are able to manu- 
facture permanent colours. But ifthe manufacturer 
uses defective material, however carefully the 
painter works, his pictures will deteriorate. We 
have seen how to test a pigment as to which we 
have suspicions. If manufacturers were compelled 
to give good materials, all these precautions and 
experiments would be greatly simplified. Painting 
would still be a difficult business, even from the 
point of view of durability; but painters would 
no longer be able to lay the blame on manu- 
facturers when colours deteriorate. All they would 
have to study would be the consequences of their 
manner of painting, in reference to the colours 
they use. 

Vibert has proposed a remedy which we have 
mentioned briefly, but which seems to deserve 
further notice. 

‘It would be enough,” says Vibert, “‘if painters, 
when they buy a tube of colour, would insist that 
the label should bear not only the usual name of 
the colour, but also the chemical formula. By 
this means, if the manufacturer did not furnish 
what he declared, he could be prosecuted, like all 
other vendors of adulterated goods.” 

Vibert proposed to the Société des Artistes 


234 


PROPOSED LEGISLATION 

ES an 
Francais that they should appoint a permanent 
Commission to deal with art materials. All 
branches of art should be represented: painters, 
sculptors, engravers, architects would here inquire 
into the practical interests of their art, processes 
and inventions, and would make the information 
acquired available. It would enter into treaties and 
agreements with the manufacturers and the dealers 
in art products. It would publish a monthly Bulletin. 
It would found a laboratory, and attached to this 
would be a chemist, whose duty it would be to study 
the questions submitted to him by the Commission 
and carry out the analyses required by artists, 
manufacturers, or dealers. 

The Society would not allow a monopoly to any 
manufacturer. It would give dealers gratuitous 
authority to label their products with a stamp 
certifying the approval of the Commission for Art 
Materials. Each manufacturer and dealer, on his 
side, would engage, on pain of a severe penalty, to 
furnish a product identical with a sample approved 
and preserved by the Commission. 

If artists could be sure that the stamped products 
were well made, they would give these the prefer- 
ence; and as the stamp would be refused to no one, 
all manufacturers and dealers would end by asking 
for the stamp and accepting the conditions. 

As the materials that we now possess enable us 
to make more durable colours than those of the 
past, as, on the other hand, there seems to be a 
very general opinion among artists that colours are 
badly prepared,* the plan proposed by Vibert is 


* One of the greatest and most famous of our contemporary painters 
summed up the opinion of artists quite recently in these words ; * Colours ? 
The further we go, the more there are, and the worse they are. 


235 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


an excellent one. It would enable manufacturers 
to prove that artists are mistaken, and it would 
restore the artist’s confidence in the manufacturer. 
The present misunderstanding would be put right. 
Everybody would gain. Certain manufacturers 
have already adopted the practice of giving the 
chemical formula on each tube they sell, but this 
practice has not become general. 

Mons. Eudel proposes the creation of a Central 
Bureau of Information relating to contemporary 
artists, their works, prices, etc., for the protection 
of artists and collectors against the manufacturers 
of and dealers in forged pictures.* 

This idea was taken up and gone into by the 
Fournal des Arts. 

An association, called like the ancient guild, the 
Society of S. Luke, would furnish collectors and 
buyers with the necessary documents and certificates 
concerning the value and authenticity of pictures 
by contemporary painters. 

After examining the canvases submitted to it, 
the Society would stamp them. It would keep in 
its registers a note of the signature, and a brief 
description of the picture. 

Not only would these documents be useful now; 
they would provide a fund of information for the 
future which would prevent any discussion about 
artists now living. A complete list of their works 
would exist, together with the names of the buyers 
who own them, and, by an arrangement which 
would involve no inconvenience, all changes of 
ownership would be notified. 


* Le Truguage, Librairie Moliére. 


236 


COMMISSION TO BE APPOINTED 


This method of defence would be as simple to 
establish as it would be useful in its results. 

Neither the Commission of Art Materials nor 
the Central Bureau of Information has been created. 
They have been discussed and approved, and 
nothing more has been done. 

But just as I am finishing this book, my friend, 
the painter Henri Bénard, has introduced me to 
Mons. Bordes, chemist, Professor of the Collége de 
France, and inspector of the chemical services of 
hygiene, who, as he knows, is interested in this 
question of the manufacture of colours. Mons. 
Bordes tells me that, by virtue of the loz Ruau, of 
August 1, 1905, dealing with the suppression of fraud 
in the sale of goods, Vibert’s project might easily 
be realised. Encouraged by Mons. Bordes’ infor- 
mation and with his concurrence, I asked the 
opinion and solicited the support of certain artists— 
Messrs. Bonnat, Member of the Institut, Director 
of the Ecole des Beaux Arts; Carolus-Duran, 
Member of the Institut, Director of the French 
School in Rome; J. P. Laurens, Member of the 
Institut, former President of the Société des 
Artistes Francais; Roll, President of the Société 
Nationale des Beaux Arts ; Humbert, Member of the 
Institut, Professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts; 
Harpignies; Dinet; Marcel Baschet; Girardot ; 
Henri Bénard. 

As these gentlemen, in response to our appeal, 
have expressed their wish for a measure to regulate 
the sale of colours, the Minister of Agriculture has 
agreed to appoint a competent Commission, made 
up of artists, chemists, and colourmen, who will 
draw up a Bill. Presented to the Minister of 


237 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


Agriculture, and then submitted to the Council of 
State, this Bill will come back with the approbation 
of the Ministry, and will appear in the Offciel with 
the authority of a law. 


238 


HOW TO LOOK AT PICTURES 


‘¢ Every man of the world is learned enough to 
appreciate the grace of a pretty woman, and yet we 
do not deign to acquire the easy but indispensable 
art of seeing pictures.” Stendhal was not altogether 
right when he wrote these words ; imdispensable is 
true enough; but easy is not. 

To see a picture properly is difficult. In the 
first place, all pictures cannot be looked at in the 
same manner. 

But there are two rules which must be observed 
before every picture: we must forget our own 
vision, and we must assimilate that of the painter. 

Our memory of Nature must not be tyrannical. 
We must renounce our own way of seeing, unless 
it conforms to that proposed to us; the more we 
enlarge our sphere of appreciation, the greater will 
be the sum of our enjoyments. Therefore we must 
not accept unreservedly the criticisms of painters, 
who are rarely able to dissociate themselves from 
their own special manner. Too often approbation 
from a painter implies the recognition of affinity.” 
In proof of this, we need only recall the ferocity ot 
the juries of the Salons towards all new methods 
of painting. They are no more capable of judging 
them fairly than the veriest Philistine. 


* There are, of course, exceptions. Such artists as Mons. Bonnat and 
Mons. Degas are eclectic art-lovers, and distinguished connoisseurs. 


239 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


To accept the artist’s point of view is essential. 
The spectator must, above all things, bow to the 
painter’s ideal, recognise it, and seek the joys it 
offers. This should be the preliminary of all 
criticism. : 

We must begin by finding out what was the end 
the artist proposed to attain. 

The first glance at a picture from a distance is 
informing. Even before we grasp the subject or 
the lines, we see and appreciate the distribution of 
the coloured masses. A true connoisseur, standing 
in the middle of a room full of pictures, can determine 
which of the works are worthy of his attention by 
merely revolving on his heels, without going any 
nearer to them. Van Eyck’s Virgin with a Donor, 
elaborate though it be, reveals itself as well ata 
distance as Rembrandt’s Philosopher, a work of 
equally modest dimensions, but very broad in touch. 
We feel that we are in the presence of the great, 
though they differ in quality. Large pictures 
painted by Velazquez, Titian, Rubens, and 
Veronese impress us from a distance by their 
plenitude, their nobility, their solidity of structure, 
while such a vast canvas as David’s Coronation of 
Napoleon fails to satisfy by its masses of colour, 
light and shade. We see at once that it is a work 
of design and detail 

Let us go nearer. The lines of the composition 
appear. We recognise it as a literary, historical or 
plastic picture. 

The pleasures of the mind may be combined with 
those of the eye. Our contemporary painters 
disdain literary, and even historical subjects. And 
yet these demand qualities of imagination, of 

240 


QUALITIES TO LOOK FOR 

eee 
intelligence, and of knowledge. They instruct, 
illuminate, and move us. They are unjustly 
despised at present. 

We must allow the right of the literary or his- 
torical picture to follow the rules of its own day. 
If it dates from the older schools, it is developed 
like a scene on the stage. In the nineteenth 
century, it became agitated and dramatic. Now 
it seizes action and outline like an instantaneous 
photograph. We must accept the ideal of each 
age and try to appreciate it: the majesty of the old 
masters, the emotion of the nineteenth century, the 
search after truth of our contemporaries. 

But whether historical, literary, or plastic, a 
picture must obey the law of representing people 
and things, of suggesting realities. 

At the distance at which we stand the execution 
should be apparent. We must seize the moment 
when the most favourable point of view manifests 
itself. 

Qualities will then be distinguished: 

Style, that is to say, nobility in composition and 
in the interpretation of form, as shown by Raphael. 
(I cite the name most expressive of the quality.) 

Design, a scholarly accomplishment if we take it 
prosaically, as the worship of contour, a supreme 
gift if we see in it the sense of form and gesture of 
a Michelangelo. 

Colour, which must not be confounded with 
colours, and looked for in vivacity of tone. It 
flourishes in the happy combinations which give at 
once brilliance and delicacy (Titian, Veronese). 

Values, that is to say, the exact rendering of 
light and shadow in their reciprocal relations, 

P. 241 R 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 
J Lee 
irrespective of their colouring, an essential quality 
which is the very structure and framework of a 
painting, a quality of such importance that some 
painters have made it the whole of a picture, and 
have relied on it alone (Rembrandt). 

Vigour and insistence on form, which is empha- 
sised with a haughty harshness among the 
Primitives (Mantegua). 

Homogeneity, flexibility of contour, softness in the 
transitions from one external form to another, 
purely technical qualities in which the Dutch and 
the Flemings have excelled. 

Atmosphere, the relation between near and 
distant objects, the imitation of the ambient air, a 
quality which has become such an obsession among 
our contemporaries that it has too often been 
exaggerated; persons and things have been 
shrouded in mists and vapours (Corot). 

To these qualities, the most frequent or the 
greatest, many others more material may be added: 
Brio in dexterous craftsmanship, and liberty of 
handling, technical qualities much sought after for 
the last hundred years, freshness of manner and 
tone, one of the qualities appreciated by our 
moderns to such an extent that they are content 
with this alone. 

As these beauties and graces are rarely combined, 
and as certain of them even exclude others, we 
need not be surprised if we sometimes find but one 
of them. Ingres thought only of line, Delacroix 
of colour and expression, Carriére of values. 

As we come nearer to it, the picture painted with 
sreat regard for detail reveals its qualities of 
material perfection and of precision. We must 

242 


SCRUTINY OF TECHNIQUE 


admit that very often it makes a bad impression 
from a distance; its elaborate execution causes the 
over-abundant half-tones to become too dark, and 
to obscure and sully the modellings when we look 
at them from a distance; they only make their full 
effect when the spectator is near the canvas.* 

We have now come very near. The highly 
finished picture asserts its claim to respect and 
attention. But whatever a picture may be, if it 
is well painted, close examination of it is extremely 
interesting. Such examination reveals its hand- 
ling, its technique, the manner in which the artist 
attacked its various portions, and produced the 
illusion which charms us at a distance. Disregard 
the injunction of the flock of sheep who tell you 
to ‘‘look at it from a distance,” andgo close. ‘The 
highly finished picture will gain from your approach, 
and the broadly painted one will lose nothing. You 
will see the scenery from the wings, after having 
admired it from the front. 

The interest of such examination will not, perhaps, 
reveal itself at once to a person who has never 
handled a brush ; but the comparison of handlings, 
and of the results obtained in the effect, will train 
the spectator’s eye by degrees, and he will end by 
discovering a peculiar attraction in the process, and 
one full of variety, in these days of technical 
improvisation ; old painting yields its secrets less 
freely, and is more difficult for the uninitiated to 
understand. 

When this close examination is over, it is well to 

* Painters who work at very close quarters to their canvases are not 
sufficiently alive to this danger. Hébert, like Reynolds before him, uses very 


long brushes, which enable him to lay on the paint at some distance from the 
canvas. 


243 R 2 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


take up a position at the most favourable point of 
view, and to carry away the remembrance of it. 

If we have the power of evoking and renewing 
images in our minds, the admired passages will 
re-appear later. They will have become ‘‘a joy 
for ever. 

Here is a final word of advice to picture-lovers. 

As the best way of seeing a picture properly is to 
isolate it, as two pictures hung side by side are 
nearly always mutually destructive, as to find two 
which enhance each other’s beauties is as rare as it 
is difficult, as museums and exhibitions realise the 
very worst and least artistic methods of displaying 
pictures, we need never be surprised to find that a 
picture we have thought charming in a room or a 
studio should have become insignificant in an 
exhibition, nor that an essentially vulgar work 
should make a good effect in a gallery. Let the 
picture-lover hold to his first opinion ;* let him say 
to himself that some pictures, like some women, 
are at their best in an intimate téfe-d-t¢te ; let him 
remember never to hang pictures closely together. 
The farther apart they are, the better they will 
speak to us. 


* He must also remember that the eye has its ‘‘ bad days,” like the temper, 
when the best painting will seem insipid. & 


244 


CONCLUSION 


CONCLUSION 


The public of to-day shows an ever-increasing 
interest in painting. 

Some persons love it as dilettant: ; others practise 
it as artists; others, again, as connoisseurs, seek 
profit in it by the purchase of works destined to 
rise in price. 

In addition to this, the teaching of drawing in 
schools is gaining in importance, and soon, no doubt, 
everyone will be able to draw, as everyone is able 
to write. In short, nearly everyone at present 
wishes to admire and understand the master-pieces 
of art. 

The moment is therefore propitious for teaching 
the public what the art of painting is, and explaining 
the different processes, pointing out their virtues 
and defects, their qualities and their weaknesses. 

This work contains the sum of the most recent 
and complete inquiries into the subject. 

I have taken counsel with the masters of the 
past and of the present. I have collected the words 
of artists in their studios. I have consulted the 
friends I consider the greatest experts in pets ys 
more especially Dinet, who, by general consent, 
held to be the most learned of our living ase 
I have further noted all that may prove helpful to 
collectors anxious to protect their treasures from 


a4) 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING 


the perils that threaten them, and their collections 
from the forgeries that might creep into them. 

No other work exists which brings all this infor- 
mation together and offers it authoritatively. I may 
say this without arrogance, for my precepts are 
based on the experience and the authority of 
masters. 

I trust that this book may become the vade mecum 
of all lovers of painting. Artists, collectors, 
amateurs, simple admirers who love to dream in 
museums, will all find here reasons for loving more, 
and working better, for understanding and defending 
the art of painting more perfectly 


246 


INDEX 


AccipEnts to pictures, repair of, 193 

Accouchement of Marie de’ Medicis, Rubens, 213 

Adoration of the Magi, Rubens, 156-157 

ZElian, cited, 8 note 

Alberti, 14 

Albrier, 223 

Albumen, I1I7 

icici eg 136-137; spirits of wine to remove varnish, 
185-1 

Aldobrandini Marriage (The), 11 

Alexander hurling Thunderbolts, Apelles, 8 

Algerian Women, Delacroix, 82 

Altamira, cave-paintings, 2 

Amaury-Duval, L’ Atelier d’Ingres, quoted, 69-70, 163-164 

Andromache “ of the white arms,”’ 6 

Angelico, 14 

Aniline dyes, 148 

Antiope, Correggio, 214 

Apelles, 4-5; Alexander hurling Thunderbolis, 8; stories of, 
8 note ; panel paintings, 9 

Apollo, temple of, 6 

Apollodorus of Athens, 7 

Apotheosis of Henri IV., 214 

Apotheosis of Homer, Ingres, 128 

Aqualenta, 103 

Avab Falconer, 231 

Arabs, colour-vision among, 73-74 

Aridikes of Corinth, 5 

Arréat, L., czted, 71 

Artistes Francais, Société des, proposal concerning colours, 234-235 

Arts, Society of, London, 51 

Aspertini, Amico, 23 

Assumption of the Virgin, Velasquez, 60 note 

Atmospheric gases, effect on pigments, 149-151, 242 

Audran, 53 “ole | 

Auripigmentum, 166 

Australian tribes, colour sense among, 75 


Bacchus, Leonardo, 163 
Bachelier, 43 
Baignoire, Renoir, 58 note 
Bail, 136 
Barque du Don Juan, Delacroix, 53 nole 
Baschet, Marcel, 237 
247 


INDEX 


Bastien-Lepage, 63 

Bathsheba, Rembrandt, 129 

Battens, rounded, 123 

Baudelaire, on Delacroix, 55 note ; on the Salon of 1846, 62 

Béarn, Mme. de, 116 

Beaudoin, fresco, 102 

Beaune, hospital of, triptych of van der Weyden, 26 note 

Beauvais tapestries, 42 

Beaux Arts, Ecole des, 36, 53, 217 

Belle, 40 

Belle Ferronniéve (La), Leonardo, 157, 163 

Belles-Lettres, Académie des, 43 

Bénard, Henri, 237 

Benner, 230 

Benzine, use of, 108 and note, 144 

Berger-Levrault, 75 

Bertholet, 202 

Bertin, Armand, portrait by Ingres, 70 note, 163-165 

Besnard, 63 

Bitumen, effects of, 127, 172-173 

Black Band, the, 63 

Blacks, 173 

Blanc, Charles, 127 

Blisters or bubbles, removal of, 193-194, 

Blockx, Jacques, Compendium cited, 119 and note, 158, 178 

Bloom on varnish, 125-127, 141-142, 143, 145, 176, 229 

Blues, 169-171 

Body colour. See Gouache. 

Boisbaudran, Lecoq de, 60-61 

Bonnat, 64, 237, 239 note 

Bordes, 237 

Boucher, 33 uote, 42 

Bouguereau cited, on varnishes, 136; pupils, 153 note; on use of 
bitumen, 173 

Boulogne, 224 

Bouquet, 43 

Bourgeois, Chas., 79, 223 

Brascassat, 149 and note 

Brauwer, 34 

Breda, Jan van de, 224 

Breughel, Velvet, 224 

Brio, 242 

Brisson, 205 

Browns, 171-173 

Brunellesco, 15-16 

Brunner Gallery, 90 note 

Burne-Jones, 181-182 

Byzantine use of canvas, 14 


4 


CADMIUMS, 155, 165-167 

Calan, of Leipzig, 43 

Camaieu, 16 

Canvas, early use, 14; oil painting on, 115-117 


248 


INDEX 


Canvases, choice of, 122-123; preservation of, 123; rolling of, 
122-124; accidents to, 193-196; lining, 196-198; trans- 
ferring, 198-199 

Caracci, the, 30 note 

Caravaggio, 27 

Card Party (The), Pieter de Hooch, 142 note 

Cardboard, oil painting on, 115 

Carriére method, 47; colour, 64; style, 242 

Cartailhac cited, 75 

Cartoons, necessity for, 29-30; for tapestry, 41-42; for frescoes, 
100 

Caseine, 118 

Cassel earth, 172 

Castagno, 24 note 

Castellan, 43-44 

Cave-paintings, I-2 

Caylus, Comte de, cited on Watteau, 38-39; revival of encaustic, 
43; formula for, 66, 1og-110; study of wax-varnish, Igo 

Caze, La, 234 

Cazin, 60 

Ceilings, preservation of, 217 

Céne (La), Dagnan, 116 

Cennini, Cennino, Tveatise cited, 11-15, 17-19, 76, 101-102, 114, 
130-131 

Central Bureau, proposal to create, 236-237 

Champagne, Philippe de, on colour, 31 ; portrait by, 157 

Chantilly— 

Duel de Pierrot, Gérdme, 129 

Chantrey, 55 note 

Chapay, 205 

Chaptal, Comte de, 170 

Chardin, method, 39-41, 58, 60 

Chérubini, portrait by Ingres, 70 note 

Chevreul, theories, 60, 77-80 ; three contrasts, 80-81 ; on result- 
ing colours, 81-82 ; Dinet’s observations, 82-83 

Chiaroscuro, Leonardo on, 16-18 

_Chinnery, 90 note 

Christ, Prudhon, 127 

Christol, Frédéric, L’Arit dans l Afrique ausirale, 1, 75 and note 

Chromes, 166—169 

Cicero on painters, guoted, Io 

Cimabue, 20 

Cimetiéve de Tétouan (Le), Girardot, 98 

Cimon of Cleone, 6 

Cirot, 205 

Cleaning before varnishing, 143-144 

Cleanthes of Corinth, 5 

Cobalt blue, 169-170 

Cochin, 40 

Collége de France, 237 

Colour, design ranked above, 30-32 ; new interest in, 34; use of 
bitumen, 46; colour-division, 55, 58 and note ; theories of 
the pre-Raphaelites, 56; coloration of white, 58-59; Bois- 
baudran’s exercises in, 60-61 


249 


INDEX 


Colours, preservation of manufactured, 50-51; complementary, 
79-83; resulting, 81-82; solid oil, 110-111; deterioration 
of, 146-173; action of light on pigments, 149-151; tests 
for, 150-151 ; how to guard against bad, 234; Bill proposed 
to govern sale of, 237-238 

Colour-vision, inquiry into nature of, 69-76; scientific, 76-79 

Commission appointed for transfer of the Madonna di Foligno, 
202-204 

Commission, first Museums, 213 

Commission of Art Materials, proposed, 234-237 

Condottiere, Antonella da Messina, 23 © 

Constable, 56 note 

Coronation of Napoleon, David, 48, 240 

Coronation of the Queen, Rubens, 214 

Corot, frescoes, 204-206 ; imitations, 230 ; style, 242 

Correggio, method, 26; Antiope, 214; Saint Catherine, 214 

Cottet, 63, 64 

Courbet, method, 56; forgeries, 230, 233 

Courtray (siccative), 131-132, 173 

Couture, Entretiens d’ Atelier, quoted, 67-68 

Cracks, 124-125 

Cradling. See Parqueting. 

Credi, Lorenzo di, 23 

Crivelli, 14 

Cros and Henry, methods, 65-66, 75-76, 108-109 

Crucifixion, Andrea Solario, 207 note 

Cydias of Cynthus, 8 note 


Dacnan, La Céne, 116; method of priming, 116; use of oil, 131 ; 
an experiment, 147; on the Monna Lisa, 160-161; use of 
terre verte, 169 

Dalbon, Ovigines de la Peinture a Vhuile, 19 note 

Damp, effect of, 141, 177 

Darcy, 223 

Darwin, theories, 71 

David, Eméric, Histoive de la Peinture quoted, 44 

David, method, 47-49, 50 note, 52, 53, 98, 186; The Oath of the 
Tennis Court, 47 note ; Coronation of Napoleon, 48,240; and 
the Museums Commission, 214 

Dealers, dishonest tricks of, 230-234 

Death of Peter Martyr, Titian, 200-201 

Decadence of primitive painting, 1o-II 

Decamps, quoted, 40; method, 51 

Degas, 59, 239 nole 

Delacroix, technique, 17, 242; on David, 47 note, 48; method, 
50-52; on colour, 52-55; Barque du Don Juan, 53 note; on 
line, 59; and complementary colours, 81; Algerian Women, 
82; Journal quoted on restoration, 206 

Delphi, temple of Apollo, paintings in, 6 

Deluge, Poussin, 214 

Design, 241 

Détrempe, 5 note 

Diaz, 230; story of, 233 


250 


INDEX 


Diderot, 43 

Diesback, discovery of, 171 

Dilettantism, 10 

Dinet, observations on Oriental language, 73-74 ; on complemen- 
tary colours, 79-80 ; on Chevreul, 82-83; method, 98; on 
primings, 119 mote; on dryers, 130, 132; on use of wax, 
139-140; on varnishes, 142-143, 145-146; on testing of 
colours, 149, 150, 152 nole, 237; experiments in colour, 158 ; 
on the Monna Lisa, 160-162 ; on Leonardo’s vermilions, 163 ; 
on Ingres, 165; receipt for madder vermilion, 165 ; on 
cadmiums, 167; on use of bitumen, 173 note; on egg- 
varnish, 181 ; on restoration, 183-184, 207, 210, 215-216 
221; on wax varnish, 190; a method of restoring, 21 5-216 

Diogenes, Poussin, 214 : 

Dippel, 171 

Diseases of pictures— 
Deterioration due to bases, 112-123; accidents, 124-146; 

deterioration of colours, 146-173 

Distemper, 5 “ote ; handling of, go-92 

Domenichino, 30 note 

Doughty, 46 

Dow, Gerard, 28 

Dryers. See Siccatives 

Dubois, Paul, 171 

Duel de Pierrot, Géréme, 129 

Dumoustier, 41 

Duprés, Jules, 231 

Duprés, Victor, 231 

Duran, Carolus, 237; method, 98; on varnishes, 139 nole ; on 
the Bertin portrait, 165 note 

Durandeau, invention of, 188-189 

Durand-Ruel, 58 note 

Dutch School, Reynolds on the, 29 

Dyck, Van, method, 28 and note ; copies Rubens, 225 


EASEL-PICTURES, 9 

Eau flamande, 180 

Eckermann, Goethe’s Conversations, 81 

Ecphantus of Corinth, 6 

Egg, oil of, 129 

Egg-painting, 102-104 

Egg-varnish, evils of, 144, 181, 189 

Egyptian art, colours of the Egyptians, 2-4 ; encaustic paintings, 
g-10 ; methods, 93 ; restoration, 192 

Elemi, 93 and note : 

Eleodoric painting, 43 

Emerald green, 168-169 

Encaustic, 9; reappearance of, 43-44, 65-66 

Encaustic painting, process of, 108-110 

Encouragement, Société d’, 170 

Equestrian Portrait of Philip IV., Velasquez, 128 

Eraclius, manuscript of, cited, 11 note, 14, 18 

Eudel, Paul, Le Truquage, cited, 224, 230, 236 


251 


INDEX 


Eumares of Athens, 6 
Euphranor, 5 
Eyck, Van, process, 19, 139; Virgin with a Donor, 124, 240 


FABRIANO, Gentile da, 14 

Falguiére, Woman holding a Dagger, 125 

Favorite (La), frigate, 201 

Félibien, 31-32 

Flanders, oil painting in, 21-22 

Flandrin, 93 

Flemings, methods of the, 14, 26, 133, 139 

Fly-stains, removal of, 210; imitated, 227 

Foligno, 201 

Forgeries, 175, 221-226; methods of the forger, 226-230 

Fragonard, 42 

Frang¢ais, 53 note 

Francesca, Piero della, 16 

French school, portrait painters, 32 ; process of oil painting, 104, 
130 ; difficulties of restoration, 211-212 

F resco-painting, principles, 99-100 ; method, 100-102 

Frescoes, Greek, 8-9 ; removal of, 204-206 ; cleaning of, 220-221 

Fromentin, Les Maitres d’ Autrefois quoted, 27 note, 28-29, 51, 
62 note, 66 note 

Fromentin sale, the, 231 


GappI, Taddeo, 12-13 

Gandara, 116 

Gardner, 90 note 

Gare Saint Lazare, Monet’s painting, 59 

Gas, coal, effect of, 177 

Gelatine, 117 

Géricault, 50 

Géréme, primings, 121 ; Duel de Pierrot, 129 ; receipt for varnish, 

138 nole, 139 note 

Gersaint, 39 

Gerspach, 221 vole 

Ghent, master-painters of, 22 

Ghirlandajo, perspective, 16; Visitation, 19 note ; method, 24 ; 
Old Man with a Child, 102 

Gigoux, 53 nole 

Gioconda (La), Leonardo, 17, 25, 160-162 

Giordano, Luca, 224 

Giotto, 13 

Girard, Paul, La Peinture antique, 6 and note, 7 

Girardot, method, 87 nole ; on fixatives for pastels, 89-90; his 
recipe for glaze, 98 ; Le Cimetieve de Tétouan, 98 ; choice of 
wood, 112; use of paper, 115; on canvases, 123; and re- 
painting, 129; on varnishes, 138 note, 139 nole ; on terre verte, 
169 ; on black, 173; supports proposal for Commission, 237 

Girodet, 49 ° 

Glass over pictures, 149, 217-219 

Glazes, 96-98 

Glycerine, 118 

Gobelin tapestries, 42 


252 


INDEX 


reece GE ET I TT LE a TE ET 


Goethe quoted, 72 ; Goethe’s Conversations, Eckermann, 81 

Gouaches, 93 ; preservation, 220 

Grailly, 223 

Greco, El, 60 note 

Greece, painters of, 4-10 

Greens, 168-169 

Gregory, Pope, 11 

Greuze, portraits, 33 note ; method, 38 nole ; The Village Bride, 
211-212; counterfeits, 223 

Grisaille, 16, 26, 28, 36-37, 46 and note 

Gros, method, 49-50 

Griin, Jules, 86 note 

Guido, 30 note, 224 

Guillemet, 230, 233 

Guimet, 170 

Guiton, 202 


HAARLEM dryer, 133 

Hacquin, 200, 202, 203, 214 

Hals, Frans, 34 

Handling, 64 

Harpignies, 237 

Heat, effect on pictures, 141, 176-177 

Hébert, 243 

Heid, Mlle., 41 

Helena Fourment and her Childven, Rubens, 142 

Henner, method, 47; handling, 107; Recumbent Nymph, 129; 
imitations, 230 

Henry, Charles, 60, 65-66, 75-76 

Hieroglyphics, use of, 67-68 

History of Marie de’ Medici, Louvre series, Rubens, 27, 156, 213 

Hoar-Frost, Monet, 58 

Hobbema, 230 

Holderness, Lord, portrait, 45 

Holy Family of Francis I., 214 

Homer, 67, 72, 73 

Hooch, Peter de, method, 29; The Card Party, 142 note 

Horsin-Déon, cited, 222, 223 

Humbert, 237 

Humboldt, 60 

Huysum, Jacob van, 224 . 

Huysum, Jan van, 224 


Ilioupersis, the, Polygnotus, 6 : 

Impressionists, methods, 31, 5 5-58, 107; Delacroix and the, 53; 
and tradition, 59-60 ; colour-division, 63 ; restoration of 
paintings, 192 

Indian yellow, 167 

Infant Moses, Poussin, 214 

Ingres, his palette, 50 note ; Amaury-Duval on, 69-70 ; portraits 
by, 70 note; Portrait of a Young Girl, 124; Apotheosis of 
Homer, 128; Portrait of Bertin, 163-105 ; style, 242 


253 


INDEX 
ATE TL EL ELE ELE LTE EERIE IE PT ES IE OSE A I a se neags aees 
Institut National, 200, 202 
Ironing, process of, 197 
Italy, technique in, 14; oil painting in, 23 ; process, 105; laws 
against exportation of paintings, 232 


Jeun, Albert, use of wax, 190-193 
Journal des Arts, 236 
Junius on colour, 30-31 


Kermesse (La), Rubens, 213 
Klomp, Albert, 224 


Landing of Marie de’ Medicis in France, Rubens, 213 
Landscape, distemper for, 92 
Lapis lazuli, 170, 173 
Laporte, Martin, 214 
Largilliére, 33-37 
Latour, 88 
Laurens, [P2347 
Laurent, Ernest, 107 
Lead poisoning, 152-153 
Leather, tanned, use of, 114 : 
Lebrun, 53 note ; on colour, 31; theories, 32, 33; on cleaning, 
182-183 ; copies Poussin, 223-224 
Lemerre, 206 
Lenain, 32 
Leo X., Raphael’s portrait of, 224 
Lethiére, 49 
Lhermitte, 60, 64 
Libro dell’ Arte. See Cennini, treatise. 
Light, action on pigments, 149-151 ; effect on pictures, 176-177 ; 
electric, 177 
Lining canvases, 196-198 
Linseed oil, Cennini’s formula, 130-1 31 
Lot Ruau, the, 237 
Lorrain, Claude, and the Impressionists, 30 note, 55, 60; imita- 
tions, 222, 223; the Liber Veritatis, 223 
Louis XIV., 32 note 
Louvre, the, Greek vases, 1; Egyptian art, 3 note ; Greuze por- 
traits, 33 note ; the Rubenses, 38, 81; Napoleon’s collec- 
tion, 50, 200; portraits by Ingres, 70 note ; Poussin’s 
pictures, 121 ; cracks, 126-127 ; catalogues, 183 ; restora- 
tions, 212; repaintings, 234 
Adoration of the Magi, Rubens, 156-157 
A potheosis of Homer, Ingres, 128 
Bacchus, Leonardo, 163 
Belle Ferronnicve (La), Leonardo, 163 
Card Party (The), Peter de Hooch, 142 note 
Christ, Prudhon, 127. 
Condottiere, Antonello da Messina, 23 
Gioconda (La), Leonardo, 160-162 
Helena Fourment and hey Children, Rubens, 142 
Madonna of Francis I., Raphael, 159 
Marie de’ Medicis series, Rubens, 27, 156, 213 


254 


INDEX 


ace em ee PTET ETE EE EE ET ERT TTT EE ET SS I GE RS SET DD STIS TED EES 


Louvre, the—continued. 
Monna Lisa, Leonardo, 160-162 
Oath of the Tennis Court, David, 47 note 
Old Man with a Child, Ghirlandajo, 102 
Povirait of Bertin, Ingres, 163-165 
St. Michael, Raphael, 199 
Triumph of Religion, Rubens, 157 
Village Bride, Greuze, 211-212 
Virgin with a Donor, Memling, 160 
Virgin with a Donor, Van Eyck, 124 
Virgin with Angels, Rubens, 114, 199 
Visitation, Ghirlandajo, 19 nole 
Young Girl, Ingres, 124 

Luxembourg, the— 
Cimetiéve de Tétouan (Le), Girardot, 98 
Hoar-Frost, Monet, 58 
Recumbent Nymph, Henner, 129 
Woman holding a Dagger, Falguiére, 125 


MADDER Carmine, 158-166 

Madonna di Foligno, Raphael, 114, 201 

Madonna of Francis I., Raphael, 159 

Magnus, Hugo, on colour-vision, 71-76, 78 note 

Mantegna, 16, 242 

Mantua, Duke of, 224 

Marcheix, 36 

Margaritone of Arezzo, 14 

Marie de’ Medicis series in the Louvre, 27, 156, 213 

Mariette, 39 

Marigny sale, 211-212 

Marouflage, 226 

Mars yellow, 167-168 

Masaccio, 16 

Mason, quoted, 45-46 

Master painters, regulations framed by, 22 

Mat, 116, 139. 

Maxence, method, 64, 88, 120-121 

Megabyzus, 8 note 

Meissonier, choice of wood, 112; use of terre verte, 169 

Memling, Virgin with a Donor, 160 

Ménard, colour, 64 

Mérimée, De la Peinture a Vhutle cited on oil painting, 20, 96, 
97; on Rubens, 27 and note ; on Greuze, 38 note; on Rey- 
nolds, 45 note; on tin tubes for colours, 51; on primings, 
119; on cobalt blue, 169; on colours, 171-172 

Mesne, President de, portrait, 157 

Messina, Antonella da, method, 19, 24 ; Condottiere, 23 

Metzu, 29 

Meudon white, 152 

Meyer-Sée, 90 note 

Michelangelo frescoes, 29; on oil, 24; method, 44; art of, 67; 
imitators, 225 ; characteristics, 241 

Micon, 6-8 

Mignard, portraits, 33 “ole 


255 


INDEX 


Mildew on pastel, 219 

Mixed painting, 99-III 

Monet, Impressionism, 58-60; Hoar-Frost, 58; Still Life, 58 
nole ; painting of the Gare Saint Lazare, 59; technique, 64 

Monna Lisa, Leonardo, 160-162 

Montabert, Paillot de, 43, 44 

Montpetit, Sieur Vincent de, 43, 217 

Moreau, 42 note 

Moret, Grailly, and Bourgeois, Messrs., 223 

Mosaic, II note 

Mummy, 173 

Museums Commission, the first, 213-215 

Museums, rules for building, 177 


N£Eo-IMPRESSIONISM, 60-61 
Night-Waich, Rembrandt, 187-1838 
Nolhac, 188 

Normal resin, 136 

Nut oil, 130 


Oath of the Tennis Court, David, 47 note 

Ciillette, 104, 130 

Oil colours, solid, 110-111 

Oil painting, beginnings of, 18-20; method of the Van Eycks, 
20-25; apogee and decline of, 25-29; process, 104-108 

Oil paintings, deterioration of colours, 111, 146-173 ; deterioration 
due to bases, 112-123; accidents to, 124 

Oil varnishes, 135 

Oils, 129-131, 133 

Old Man with a Child, Ghirlandajo, 102 

Opaque painting, processes, 85-94 

Ostade, 223 

Oudry, discourse quoted on colour, 34, 38; primings, 121 

Over painting, 127-129 


PALETTE, use of the, 15, 23, IOI 

Panel, method of transferring a picture from a, 199-204 

Panels, wood for, 112-114; preparation, II4—-II5 

Paper, oil painting on, I15 

Paris white, 118 

Parqueting or cradling, 113-115, 199 

Parrhasius, technique, 7-8 ; panel paintings, 9 

Passavant, 200 

Pastels—first use of, pastel, 41 ; reappearance of, 65 ; protection 
of, 85-87; method of execution, 87-88 ; fixatives, 88-90 ; 
glazing of, 90; diseases, 111 ; preservation, 219-220 

Pata, 230 

Patel, 222 

Pausanias, 7 

Péladan, 16 

Pentimenti, 127-129 

Perignon, 223 , 

Perrault, Charles, Poéme de la Peintuve, 32 


250 


INDEX 


Persians, method of the, 93 

Perspective, creation of, 15-16 

Perugino, methods, 20, 24, 26 

Petit Palace, frescoes, 102 

Petroleum, 134 

Phidias, 4, 67 

Philocles, the “‘ Egyptian,” 5 

Philosopher, Rembrandt, 240 

Philostratus, 9, 108 | 

Photographers, methods of, 181-182 

Picault, 198 

Picture galleries, building of, 177 

Pictures, how to look at them, 239-244 

Pierre on Greuze’s Village Bride, 211-212 

Pintorricchio, 14 

Pissaro, 59 

Plans, Galerie des, 213 

Pliny, cited, 5, 8 note, 9, 10, 11, 108 

Plutarch, cited, 8 note, 9, 10 

Potntillisme, 60, 107 

Pollajuolo, 24 

Polygnotus, the Iloupersis, 6; frescoes, 8; colours, 8 note 

Polytechnique, Ecole, 170 

Portrait painters, 32 

Potter, Paul, 224 

Pottier, E., 1 

Poussin, method, 30-32; primings, 121; restorations, 211; the 
Deluge, 214; Dtogenes, 214; Infant Moses, 214; Woman 
taken in Adultery, 214; imitations, 223-224 

Prado Gallery— 
Equestrian portrait of Philip IV., Velasquez, 128 

Praxiteles, 4 

Pre-Raphaelism, 56-57 

Preservation of pictures, 175-180 

Primings, 118-122 

Primitives, cave-paintings, 1-2; methods, 23 note, 33-34, 107; 
use of gold-leaf, 26 note; the French, 29-32, 160; use of 
colour, 31; practice of egg painting, 103; primings, 119, 
121, 200; use of red madders, 159-160; use of terre verte, 
169; restoration, 210-211 ; forgeries, 226-227 

Processes, 84—111 : 

Protogenes, 5 

Protuberances, repair of, 193 yaa Lhe 

Prudhon, technique, 46; handling, 107; Christ, 127; imitations, 
223 

Prussian blue, discovery, 171 

Pythagoreans and colour-vision, 72 


QuapRI di fabrica, 222 


RAFFAELLI, solid oil colours, I10o-11f 
Rainbow (The), Rubens, 213 


P. 257 S 


INDEX 


Raphael, oils, 25, 26; frescoes, 29; influence, 30; method, 44; 
Couture and, 67; Madonna di Foligno, 114, 201; Satnt 
Michael, 114, 199; use of canvas, 114; Madonna of Francis I., 
159; restorations, 200; portrait of Leo X., 224; pupils, 
225; characteristics, 241 

Reading Girl, Renoir, 59 

Recumbent Nymph, Henner, 129 

Reds, 154-166 

Regnaud, 213 

Regnault, Henri, 152 

Rembrandt, method, 28 and note, 34,98; Bathsheba, 129; Night- 
Watch, 187-188 ; Philosopher, 240; style, 242 

Renaissance, early Italian, 30; method of the time, 107; work- 
shops of the, 224-225 

Renoir, Batgnoire, 58 note ; Reading Girl, 59 

Requeno, Abbé, 43 

Resin, 135-136 

Restoration of pictures, 175, 181-217 ; Delacroix on, 206; Dinet’s 
method, 207, 215-216 

Restorers, methods of, 192 and note, 215; qualities necessary in 
a restorer, 208-212, 215-216; restorers of the Revolution 
period, 212-213 

Re-touching mixtures, 139 

Reynolds, Twelfth Discourse quoted, 28 noite ; on the Dutch School, 
29; and Boucher, 33 note ; method, 44-46, 243 noie 

Richter, Dr. J. P., 16 ote 

Rig-Véda, the, 71 

Rioult, 223 

Riviére, Mons. and Mme., portrait by Ingres, 70 note 

Roehn, 223 

Roeser, 204 

Roll, 121 note, 237 

Romano, Giulio, 24, 224 

Romanticists, 53 

Rome, painting in, 10-11 

Rosalba, 41 

Rosselli, Cosimo, 14 

Rouen Cathedral, Monet’s painting, 58-59 

Royal Academy, the, and the pastellists, 41 note 

Rubens, method, 22, 27, 28, 34, 48, 49, 98; History of Marie de 
Medici series in the Louvre, 27, 156, 213; Mérimée on, 97 ; 
use of panels, 114; Virgin with Angels, 114, 199, 214; 
varnish, 139; Helena Fourment and her Children, 142; 
Adoration of the Magi, 156-157; restorations, 156-157; 
Triumph of Religion, 157; use of terre verte, 169; La 
Kermesse, 213; The Rainbow, 213; pupils, 225; charac- 
teristics, 240 

Ruskin, theories, 56 

Russell, fixatives used by, 90 note 

Ruysdael, 223, 230 


SAHARA, temperatures, 83 note 
Saint Bartholomew, incident of the massacre, 81 
Saint Catherine, Correggio, 214 


258 


INDEX 
EE a ee 


Saint Germain-des-Prés, 93 

Saint Michael, Raphael, 114, 199 
Sarcophagi, Egyptian, 14 

Sarto, Andrea del, 224 

Sauvigny (Céte d’Or), 204 

Say, Mme. Léon, 164 

School of Athens, 1o1 

Sciences, Académie des, 79, 191, 217 
Sculpture, primitive, character of, 69 
Seurat, Georges, 60 

Shakespeare, 67 

Siccatives, 131-133 

Sicyon, 5 

Signac, Paul, 60, 107 

Signatures, forged, 229 

Silver white, 152 

Size for priming, 116-118 

Snyders, 224 

Society of St. Luke, 236 

Solario, Andrea, Crucifixion, 207 note 
South African tribes, colour sense among, 75 
Spike, oil of, 134 

Spirits of wine to remove varnish, 185-188 
Stendhal, 239 

Stull Life, Monet, 58 note 

Strontian yellow, 167 

Style, 241 


Tableaux dc tournure, 222, 226 

Taking of Constantinople, 17 

Tapestry, cartoons for, 41-42 

Taubenheim, Chas., Baron von, 43, 190 

Taunay, 42 note, 202 

Telephanes of Sicyon, 5 

Tempera, 5 note, 15, 102-104 

Temperature for museums and galleries, 178 

Teniers, David, 32, 34, 224 

Terburg, 29 

Terre verte, 169 

Tests for genuineness, 228 

Thénard, 169, 220 

Theophilus (Rogierus), treatise cited, 11 note, 14, 18, 114 

Thespis, 6 

Thiele of Erfurt, 41 

Tintoretto, 24 

Titian, method, 25, 26, 28, 49, 98, 108; Mérimée on, 97; Death 
of Peter Martyr, 200-201; copies, 224 characteristics, 240,241 

Tocqué, Reflexions, 33 note 

Torn canvases, 194-196 

Tour, Quentin de La, 41 

Transferring a picture, method, 198-206 

Transfiguration, Raphael, 200 

Transparent painting, 94-98 

Triumph of Religion, Rubens, 157 


259 


INDEX 


Trouillebert, 230 

Troy, de, 33 

Turner, 30 note, 55, 59 
Turpentine, spirit of, 134 
Tyssens, Pieter, 28 note 


UccELLo, Paolo, perspective, 16 
Ultramarine, French, 170 


VARNISH, Cennini on use of, 15; glazes and varnishes, 96-98 ; 
composition of, 135-140; evils of egg-varnish, 181 ; removal 
of, 182-183, 185 ;; wax as, 189-193 ; the forger’s use of, 227 

Varnishing, purpose of, 140-141 ; bloom, 141-142 ; precautions, 
142-143 ; operation of, 143-146 

Vasari cited on the use of canvas, 14; on the advent of oils, 19 
note ; saying of quoted, 23; on the Gioconda, 25; on the 
Monna Lisa, 160-162 ; as pupil of Sarto, 224 

Vaseline, 134 

Vatican paintings, II, 44 

Vauquelin, 170 

Vedas, the, 72 

Velasquez, Assumption of the Virgin, 60 note ; Equestrian Portrast 
of Philip IV., 128; characteristics, 240 

Velde, Van de, 223 

Venetians, methods of the, 26, 33 

Veneziano, Domenico, legend of, 24 note 

Venius, Otto, 22 

Vermilion, 155 

Vernerin, Mme., 41 

Vernon, 230 

Verona, frescoes whitewashed at, 221 

Veronese, oil paintings, 24; use of distemper, 92; method, 108 ; 
characteristics, 240-241 

Veronese green, 169 

Verrocchio, 24 

Versailles museum, 126, 188 

Versailles, palace of, 188 

Vibert, La Science de la Peintuve cited, 22 note, 92, 94, 97, 102, 
10s, 108, 114 nole, 119, 120, 123, 129, 132, 135, 147, 148; 
Vibert varnish, 115, 135-136 ; on torn canvases, 194-196 ; his 
remedy for bad colours, 234-237 

Vigée-Lebrun, Mme., 182 

Village Bride, Greuze, 211-212 

Ville d’Avray, 205 

Vincent, 202 

Vinci, Leonardo da, Treatise on Painting cited, 16-18, 30, 76-77; 
157, 162 note; La Gioconda, 25, 160-162; oil paintings, 
25-26; La Belle Ferronntére, 157, 163 ; Monna Lisa, 160 162; 
Bacchus, 163 

Violets, 171 

Virgil, 67 

Virgin with a Donor, Memling, 160 

Virgin with a Donor, Van Eyck, 124, 240 

Virgin with Angels, Rubens, 114, 199, 214 


260 


Virtuosity, rise of, 33 
Visitation, Ghirlandajo, 19 noite 
Vitruvius, 9, 108 

Vos, Paul de, 224 


WATER-COLOUR painting, 42, 65, 94-95 

Water-colours, diseases, III ; preservation, 219; cleaning, 220 

Water-varnish, 103-104 

Watteau, method, 33, 38; technique, 38-39; Impressionists 
and, 59 

Watts, G. F., 57 

Wax for encaustic, formula of Comte de Caylus, 110; as varnish, 
139, 189-193 

Wax-painting, 93-94 

Weyden, Rogier van der, triptych at Beaune, 26 nole 

White lead, dangers from, 152-153 

White pigment, 152-154, 158 

Whitewashing of frescoes, 221 

Woman taken 1n Adultery, Poussin, 214 

Wooden panels, choice of, 112-115 

Wouwermans, 224 


YELLow, 166-168 
Zend-Avesta cited, 71-73 


Zeuxis, technique, 7-8 ; an incident, 8 note ; panel paintings, 9 
Zinc white, 152, 154 


THE WHITEFRIARS PRESS, LTD., LONDON AND TONBRIDGE 


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